And the Wolves All Cry
by monroeslittle
Summary: AU. if a certain person doesn't hear a prophecy, does it still come true?


a/n: I haven't written HP fic in a very long time. I'm not sure what this is, but I've had an idea for this wildly AU fic for a while, and here's my best shot at it. The title and the lyrics are from Imagine Dragon's "Bleeding Out." :)

* * *

_When the day has come,_

_That I've lost my way around,_

_And the seasons stop and hide beneath the ground,_

_When the sky turns gray,_

_And everything is screaming,_

_I will reach inside,_

_Just to find my heart is beating._

* * *

A cockroach scuttles across the wall, disappearing into a crack in the plaster.

The flat is decrepit, water stains spiraling over the ceiling like fine lines in a spider web, the sparse furniture worse for wear, featuring lumpy, stained chair cushions and cigarette butts stubbed out on unvarnished wood. She can't believe this is where the most powerful woman in Great Britain lives.

The room smells like stale sweat, and she glances at the jammed windows; they're painted shut, she realizes, and she shifts uncomfortably in her chair. Accidentally, her eyes catch on the man in the corner, smoking like a chimney and staring straight at her. His hair is greasy, his face gaunt, and he sits slumped in his seat with his wand lazily held aloft between his fingers. His gaze doesn't waver.

She crosses her ankles, trying to focus on Mrs. Potter.

The woman is nothing like Caroline expected her to be.

She carries herself as though the ground beneath her feet is flimsy, ready to give way, and Caroline can't reconcile the small, tattered woman with the woman featured in the news. The woman in photographs splashed across the Daily Prophet is a strong, smiling heroine. Her face is round; her eyes are bright. She is a fighter through and through, Lily Potter, the woman who saved the world.

The woman who lets Caroline into the flat is thin, seemingly sewn together with scarred, sallow skin stretched over brittle bones. A jagged, raised scar snakes across her throat, over her chin, reaching out to a torn, ragged ear. She wears a large, lumpy jumper over a faded print dress, her knobby knees hidden in thick stockings that disappear into wellington boots. Her hair falls in wispy, unkempt tendrils, her front tooth is chipped in a jagged line, and her hands, twisting in her lap, feature bony fingers, knotted knuckles, and nails cut with ragged edges.

"I put the kettle on," Mrs. Potter says.

Across the room, a soft clicking noise sounds, and the man in the corner puffs on a fresh fag.

Caroline decides to ignore him. She smiles at Mrs. Potter. "Thank you." She clears her throat and dips her quill into the ink pot. "I guess we'll jump right in," she says. "As you know, I'm asking survivors from the Menial District about their experience in the war. What was your experience?"

* * *

She blinks, and a hundred memories flood her mind.

* * *

"Padfoot!" James roars, beckoning, "Lily needs to sit on you!"

Sirius stumbles forward, and Lily giggles madly as Sirius drops to his knees. "I'm ready," Sirius crows eagerly, and Lily sags into Remus, tears beading in her eyes from laughter. He catches her elbows and lugs her onto Sirius. She grins, petting Sirius on the head, and looks at her husband.

His shirt is untucked, his glasses askew on his face, but his eyes are bright in his flushed face, and he is her husband. She crooks her finger at him, and he kneels, his hands sweaty on her calves as she spreads her legs. He kisses her knee, and Lily runs her hand through his hair, laughing a little when she feels Sirius shake underneath her. "Get on with it, you bleeding moose!" Sirius bellows.

James catches her garter in his teeth and tears off the thing with a flourish.

Everyone cheers, and James surges up towards Lily.

She takes his sweaty face in her hands, kissing him, her husband. James Potter is her husband.

He wraps his arms around her, his hands palming her ass, making her laugh into his mouth; a moment later, he is falling backwards and she is coming with him, landing against his chest awkwardly, elbowing his stomach, bumping her head against his, and catching his glasses in her curls.

But he kisses her, smelling like sweat and Scotch and James, and he is her husband. They're fighting in a war, but they're together. Married.

* * *

A week after the wedding, Mrs. Potter dies. Sirius goes to fetch tea, and Mrs. Potter slips away quietly as James sits beside her.

They knew she was fading; it's why they rushed the wedding. But she seems impossibly small in the bed, and it's the second time Lily sees her husband cry. The first came when Mr. Potter passed a few months ago.

Mrs. Potter hasn't had the heart to carry on since that moment, and she claims she was ready to go. It's sweet, but Lily feels strangely alone in the world. Her own parents are dead, killed instantly in a car accident almost a year ago, and she hasn't been close with her extended family since she was child. There's Petunia, but her sister has made very clear that she isn't interesting in considering Lily to be her family. The Potters became her family, but now they're dead. There's James, though. Sirius. Remus. Peter. Her boys.

She owls Remus, and she tells him to talk to Peter.

She cleans up the tea that Sirius splattered on the floor. "Thanks, Gail," he murmurs.

She puts a casserole in the oven for dinner. The boys need to eat.

James pulls her into his lap at the table. It's awkward, but she doesn't protest, letting him have his way, because his hand is fisted tightly in her skirt, and his eyes are rimmed with red. Remus murmurs softly to Sirius, who pulls out another cigarette, smoking his way through a pack, but Lily can't bring herself to reprimand him for it. Peter shifts uncomfortably, repeatedly opening his mouth as though he wants to say something; in the end, he stays quiet, pouring a drink for himself.

An owl comes from Dumbledore with Order business, and dinner ends early.

* * *

It isn't long before Voldemort tries to recruit them.

They refuse, and they escape. But Lily can't stop shaking, crying as Poppy tends to the burns that crisscross her arms, refusing to let James leave her sight. She is in shock, Poppy says. But the night passes, and they survived, and something inside Lily steels, because he tried to recruit her.

It wasn't simply James he was after. Voldemort tried to recruit her. Lily.

He doesn't care about blood. It's power that he wants, and knowing that only strengthens her resolve to stop him.

* * *

They've shared a flat with Sirius and Remus since school, but they don't leave after they're married.

It's home, and they're comfortable in it. Besides, Sirius would likely follow wherever they moved, dragging Remus with him, and Lily is forced to admit that she likes having them around. It's nice, hearing people moving in the next room over, having tea perpetually boiling in the kitchen, knowing someone is around to talk about nothing whenever she wants. She likes a crowded flat.

Someday, she thinks, they'll move. Someday, when they have someone else to overhear in the next room. A child, or two. Or three. She smiles, mentioning the thought to James.

He chokes on his orange juice, alarmed.

She pounds his back. "Calm down," she says, rolling her eyes. "I said _someday_, you prat."

He nods, coughing, and she flicks his ear as she circles the counter to take the eggs off the stove.

* * *

The first night she saves a life is a Tuesday in August. She feels drunk from the victory, knowing three Death Eaters are on their way to Azkaban, knowing she helped Gideon Prewett save those two scared, cursed Muggle teenagers. This war is a fight they can win.

But she hasn't cracked open the Firewhiskey before James pushes up the window for an owl.

Marlene McKinnon was murdered, brutally, alongside her entire family. All that's left is bits.

Lily cries until she can't breathe, and James pushes his fingers into her mouth, forcing her jaw open, telling her to take a deep breath. She bites his fingers, drawing blood, and her head pounds until she is sick. It's not real. It's not, it's not, it's not. Remus must put something in her tea, because she falls to sleep. It doesn't help. The nightmare tears her apart from the inside out, and she wakes.

The funeral is small. Lily tries to read something, but she can't really manage it.

James ends up reading her speech over her shoulder as she sways beside him.

She can't fall asleep that night, and she can't stop crying silent, unending tears. James clutches her as close as he can, constantly smoothing her hair from her forehead, but it doesn't help, because the nightmare is real. Sirius climbs onto the bed to rest beside her, his forehead against her shoulders.

Remus is on the bed, too, she realizes, resting his head on her thigh. His hand finds hers.

The bed shifts, and Peter is sitting on the edge. He reaches out, touching her calf.

She doesn't sleep very well that night, constantly jolting awake, but every time they're with her, talking in low voices that lull her back to sleep. It takes a few weeks, but the war isn't finished yet.

Marlene owned a pearl broach from her grandmother. She loved it.

Lily fastens the broach to her robes, and she heads out to the Order meeting with the boys.

* * *

James fiddles with her hair, knotting the curls around his fingers.

She used to bat at his hand in school, telling him not to do that, but he would whine and wheedle about how he loves her hair, _please, Lily, I can't help it, please,_ and he would slobber all over her face with wet, pleading kisses. Eventually, she found a few conditioning spells, indulging him.

He reaches his other hand out, tweaking her nipple. "I think your tits are getting bigger."

"What?" She pops an eye open to send him a funny look.

He shifts, flattening her underneath him, and cups her breasts, pushing them together. "Look."

"My breasts are not any bigger," she tells him. "I think I would know."

He shakes his head. "I'm pretty sure I love your tits more than you do," he argues, biting her breast affectionately before propping himself up on his elbows to look knowingly at her. He catches her hair beneath his elbow, though, yanking at her skull. She shoves his chest, forcing him to roll off.

"Wanker."

He presses a kiss to her shoulder. "I love you, too."

She flicks his cheek, and she doesn't think about it.

Or, well, she doesn't until she hears at an Order meeting that Alice Longbottom is pregnant. "That's bad luck," Sirius says, and James nods. Lily bites her lip, trying to remember the last time she had her period. It's been a while, she realizes, weeks and weeks, but that's not strange. Hers is irregular.

Don't panic, she tells herself.

But she needs to make a potion to test for it.

* * *

She doesn't know how to tell him, and she doesn't try very hard.

It's easier to pretend that nothing is real when no one else knows. She is gaining weight, but the boys are tactful enough not to say anything about it, and, honestly, they're not the most observant lot; she goes out, drinks diet coke the entire time, and, when she is sick the next morning, James rubs her back as Sirius waxes poetic about the days when he was that hungover.

She needs to do something, but she can't make herself deal with the idea.

They're fighting a war, and that's a bigger fish to fry, isn't it?

There's Christmas to think about. They should enjoy Christmas without having yet another thing to worry about. Benjy Fenwick is dead, and Caradoc Dearborn is missing, and Frank is in the hospital with burns covering his legs after saving his wife from a second brush with Voldemort.

The world is falling apart, and Lily spends Christmas baking biscuits and pretending it's not. The potion matures a few weeks later, and she takes it. She can't not. She's been holding out hope that she might've been mistaken. She wasn't. She isn't. The potion makes her skin glow brightly, because she is pregnant.

Peter frowns at her over the kitchen table that night. "Do you think you have enough salt?"

She pauses. Her sausages are white, coated with salt. "I like salt," she snaps.

He holds up his hand. "Sure, sure." But he exchanges a look with James, and Lily hates when they do that, having their silent conversations behind her back. She shoves her chair from the table and storms out, ignoring James when he tries to say something to her. She returns, of course, for the food, because she is famished, but no one says a word as she stalks out, holing up in the living room.

"Do you want to visit a Healer?" James asks a few days later, because it's three in the morning, and she can't stop throwing up over the toilet. His eyelids are heavy with sleep, but he looks concerned.

She shakes her head. "I could use something to eat, though," she says, and he nods, fetching biscuits. They're tasteless in her mouth, but they settle her stomach. "I'm fine, really," she insists. She washes out her mouth as he crawls back into bed, and he is already asleep when she joins him.

Another few weeks, and she is losing it. Her breasts ache, and she needs a drink, but she feels guilty when she looks at wine, and Sirius uses the worst shampoo. "It smells like decaying fish!"

"Oi! Watch your mouth, Gail! I've been using this since I was at Hogwarts!"

"And I've been suffering for it!" Lily says, ready to strangle him. He is making her _mental_.

She isn't sure how the fight escalates, but he ends up narrowly escaping the cookbook that she aims at his head, and he looks at her with stormy eyes. "What's your problem, woman?" he exclaims. "I swear, you're barmier than Alice Longbottom, and at least she has an excuse for it!"

Lily stares at him, shaking with fury. "Get out!" she hisses. "OUT! GET OUT OF MY FLAT, YOU BLEEDING INGRATE!" She grabs another cookbook. Remus touches her arm, and she elbows him as hard as she can. "I can't stand to _look_ at you!" she snarls. "OUT, Black! Get OUT!"

She's reaching for the kettle when James pins her arms to her sides. "He's leaving," he says.

Sirius slams the door shut behind himself, but Remus follows a moment later, quietly closing the door. The kitchen is silent, and Lily tries to shove James off. "What's the matter with you?" he asks. He releases her, but he keeps her cornered against the counter. "Has something happened?"

"A _war_ is happening," she snarls.

His jaw locks. "Don't, Lily."

She crosses her arms over her chest, jostling her breasts, her large, stupid, sensitive breasts. Out with it, she tells herself. James stares expectantly at her, something nervous flickering in his eyes.

"I'm pregnant."

He gapes. "No — no, you're not."

"I am," she says, glaring. "I'm almost four months along. I took the potion."

"Okay, um, okay. How — how long have you know?" He runs a shaking hand through his hair.

She shrugs, feeling her eyes start to burn with tears she doesn't want to cry, but she is as barmy as Sirius Black thinks she is, and she is pregnant. "I don't know," she mutters. "Since a few weeks before Christmas."

"But that's — that's almost three months!" he sputters. "Why didn't —? Why didn't you tell me?"

She curls her hands into fists, trying to keep herself together. "Because," she says.

"Because?!" he repeats, exploding, and she bristles. He doesn't have any right to be mad at her, considering his husband didn't knock him up, fuck you very much. "Lily, you can't be serious!"

She scoffs at him. "I think I'm the one that would know!"

They're screaming within minutes. It lasts until she can't hear herself think, and she stalks away from him to bed. But James follows, refusing to sleep on the couch. Lily builds a pillow wall between them on the bed, using every throw pillow she can find. She feels ridiculous lying in the dark as soon as her wall is built, but she won't let herself cry. She hates him, and she can't handle this, and she can't be pregnant.

She can't.

She bites her tongue until she tastes blood, and she presses her face into her pillow.

* * *

"Have you thought about names?" James asks softly, suddenly, breaking the silence.

She shifts, turning, and she can see his eyes gleaming in the dark through a hole in her wall.

"No," she says. "I haven't thought about — about anything. I can't think about it." She doesn't understand how he can. She takes a deep breath. "It's happening, though, and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how I'm supposed to handle it. I'm losing my mind, James."

It's quiet.

"We could, you know, not — not have it." His voice is strained.

"Yeah," she murmurs, clearing her throat. "We could not have it."

But it's too late not to have it, isn't it? It would've been the smart thing to do, but that would've required thinking about the fact that she was pregnant, and she spent the better part of four months putting all of her effort into _not_ thinking about being pregnant. It's too late, and it's too quiet.

"I love you," he announces abruptly. It's what he says when everything else fails, and she doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry, whether to love or to hate him. "We could name a girl after Marlene," he adds, earnest.

"I —" She shakes her head, pressing her palms into her eyes. "I don't know how to deal with this!"

"Me, neither," he says, "but we have to, don't we? We'll figure everything out. We _have_ to."

She swipes at her cheeks. "Or Lydia," she whispers, "after your mum. It's a pretty name." Her eyes itch with the tears, and she looks up at the ceiling, swallowing thickly. "This can't be real, James, I —"

"That's it," he declares. A pillow soars off the bed. "I'm coming over."

She can't help laughing as he dramatically destroys her wall. A moment later, his hands slip under her night gown to stroke her back, and he litters kisses over her face, trying to catch her tears. "Lily, Lily, Lily," he breathes, something like reverence in his voice, like awe; it was the same when they kissed for the first time, as though he couldn't believe she was with him.

"I don't know anything about babies," he says, nuzzling her cheek. "But Sirius is good practice, right?" He smiles crookedly at her, and she takes his face in her hands, kissing him.

"I love you," she says, promises, swears. "I love you, James Potter."

* * *

Sirius crosses his arms. His gaze flickers from her face to her stomach. "Are you sure you're not just putting on the pounds, Gail?"

"I'm going to pound my fist into your face," she replies.

* * *

Dumbledore stares at her during the Order meeting. She notices, catching his gaze, and he smiles.

"I was trying to remember," he says, "how many times have you faced Voldemort?"

Her chest tightens. Why would he ask that? "Three," James replies for her. "Why?"

But Dumbledore shakes his head, and his smile doesn't waver. "An old man's curiosity, that's all."

* * *

Harry is born at midnight.

He comes three weeks early, but labor lasts for almost two days, and she can't help glaring at the Healer who says the little boy was eager to come out; as far as Lily is concerned, there was nothing early about his arrival. He is tiny, though, is soft pink skin and downy black hair and big, big eyes.

Lily laughs when Sirius is afraid to hold him, backing away in protest when Lily offers to let him.

James looks ready to cry when Harry wraps his tiny, tiny fingers around his thumb. "Look, Lily!"

"He loves you," Lily says.

James nods. "He loves me," he repeats. He sounds like a child, and Lily can't believe they've made a child. A baby. Harry. She blinks sleepily, sinking a little into the pillows. Harry flails an arm wildly through the air. "Look, Lily!" James exclaims. "An arm like that is made for Quidditch!"

She snorts.

"Wait, unwrap the blanket," Sirius says. "I want to see how tiny his bits are."

"Honestly, Padfoot," Remus says, exasperated.

"He's holding on tight to my thumb," James says. "A good grip like that is important for Chasers."

Lily closes her eyes, drifting off as the boys look after her son.

* * *

She starts coughing, waking in the dark.

The room is quiet. She frowns, trying to push herself up; her body protests the strain, but she fumbles for her wand. What time is it? Another coughing fit seizes her, and her eyes itch. And she can smell the smoke. Is that smoke? She finds her wand, lighting the room, and panic seizes her. The room _is_ filling with smoke, seeping in through under the door. She stumbles from the bed.

Someone screams.

She sends a patronus to James with a shaking hand, grabbing the jacket he left in the room.

It dwarfs her frame, but she holds an arm over her face, covering her mouth with the sleeve.

And she pushes out into the smoky corridor. It isn't simply someone screaming; a dozen voices are raised in panic, loud in the rooms around her, tinny from the distance. What happened? Where are the boys? Where is Harry? He would be in the ward for newborns, right? Which direction is that?

She tries to stay calm, waving away the smoke with great windy gusts from her wand. A moment later, a purple stream cuts through the corridor, and she flattens herself against the wall to avoid it.

St. Mungo's is under attack.

The Death Eater appears, stalking through the smoke, but he doesn't see Lily, and she takes him out before he does. She binds him, unable to do more. She needs to get to Harry. Her head is pounding, the smoke making her eyes water, but she pushes forward towards the infant ward.

Another spell spirals towards her, but she manages to deflect it.

The Death Eaters start to spill from the stairwell, stalling her, and her wand is slippery in her hand as she tries to fight them, but adrenaline pumps through her veins, steadying her. She blasts a large, hulking Death Eater into the wall, but it's not enough; another Death Eater disarms her, and he isn't alone. It's two to one, and they've corned her against the wall. She coughs on the thickening smoke.

She doesn't take her eyes off the Death Eater who raises his wand to her.

And she watches him fly through the air, landing with his neck at an odd angle.

She doesn't understand.

It was a third Death Eater who saved her, and she is afraid to try to retrieve her wand; instead, she presses herself into the wall, covering her mouth with the jacket, trying to breathe into the worn fabric that smells like James. The Death Eater stares at her, eyes gleaming behind the silver mask.

She realizes who he is an instant before he waves his hand and the mask evaporates from his face.

She tries to say his name, but she coughs on the words. Severus doesn't blink.

He saved her life, but he came with the Death Eaters to attack the hospital. He saved her life from his friends. She can't believe it, can't _fathom_ it, and she can't take her eyes off him. But she can't breathe, either, choking as she sinks against the wall. He takes a step towards her, and a disarming spell hits him in the chest. "Lily!" Remus shouts, reaching her as she collapses on the ground.

He waves away a little smoke with his wand and starts to haul her to her feet.

"Come on," he murmurs. "We've got to get out. Come on."

She nods, letting him lead her away, but, no, she can't, because — "Harry!" she says, struggling against Remus. "No, Remus, I have to find Harry! No!" She tears away from him. "I have to find my baby!" she screams, on her knees, grasping her wand. She looks up. Severus is staring at her.

Remus touches her shoulders. "Dorcas Meadows got the kids out," he says. "Harry is safe."

He doesn't wait for her to reply, grasping her waist, pulling her up, and urging her towards the stairs. The smoke billows towards them with unnatural force, and Severus disappears in the haze.

Remus manages to get them to the roof, where he Apparates with Lily tucked into his side.

Harry is safe, he said.

She faints as the world stretches and shrinks around them.

* * *

The Death Eaters burned the hospital to the ground.

It's the cruelest terrorism they've committed, and Lily doesn't want to believe it. She didn't suffer any lasting damage from it; a simple potion soothed her throat, and James didn't hesitate to hand over her son, her tiny, helpless boy, untouched. Safe. She starts to cry before she can stop herself.

No one seems to notice her silent tears; everyone is bedraggled, terrified, exhausted.

James cards his hands through her tangled, sooty hair, his own face as grimy as hers. They stay up through the night with everyone else from the Order, waiting for news about the hospital. Lily sings under her breath to Harry when they learn that the death count is at seventy two, and she pretends to doze against James when Remus explains softly to everyone that he saw Severus among the killers.

Alone, James breaks down. "The fighting started before I could reach you, and I was caught up in it, and — and I tried to reach Harry, but — Lily, Lily, I was scared —" He shudders, and she quiets him with kisses, his tears splashing hotly against her arms as she strokes his hair.

Harry keeps her up night after night, but she doesn't care. She would rather sit with him, nursing him, tickling his tiny feet, watching his fingers curl, than drown in smoky nightmares.

They were going to move into a house with Harry the way a proper family would. They don't.

They stay in the flat, and Peter starts to spend every night on the coach. Lily is glad; she worries about him when he isn't around. It rains for weeks, and the Order can't seem to accomplish anything. It's impossible to tell who in the Ministry is under the Imperius Curse and who isn't, the Dementors have joined Voldemort, the disappearances and the deaths are too many to count.

Hogwarts is the haven in everything, and Lily clings to that.

They haven't lost Hogwarts, because they haven't lost Dumbledore. He can defeat Voldemort.

Harry grows, two months old, three months old, six months old, sitting up, drooling, playing with the kitten that Lily takes in from a storm on a whim. She doesn't know how to be a mother, or she didn't when they put her son in her arms, but she learns, and James learns with her. They blindly fumble their way through parenthood, and Harry becomes their world. They have to keep Harry fed. They have to keep Harry safe. They have to change his nappy, read him a story, sing him to sleep.

It's something to hold onto, and Lily holds as tightly as she can.

* * *

James ties a snitch to a string and loops the string around Harry's waist.

It's ridiculous, but Lily can't help laughing when she sees Harry rolling and crawling and reaching for the little golden snitch that buzzes around him. Harry pushes himself to his feet for the first time trying to reach that stupid toy. He topples over a moment later, of course, but he is undeterred, and James whips his head around to grin at Lily, his eyes shinning with clear, unadulterated, childish pride.

James is fighting in this war, too, sleeping three or four hours a night, watching everything crumble around them, yet he possesses endless energy for playing with Harry, and Lily loves it.

"Do you like playing with Dada, sweet boy?" she whispers, kissing his fuzzy hair as James prods stuffed animals with his wand to make them dance for Harry. "Dada loves you, Harry," she says.

James teases Harry constantly, pulling little tricks on him, making light disappear in one hand and reappear in the other, and Harry giggles madly, clapping chubby little hands. James runs around the house, holding Harry above his head, pretending they're on a broom, flying with sound effects.

The first word Harry says is "play."

They're playing with blocks, stacking them, knocking them over, stacking them, and knocking them over, when Sirius arrives on his motorcycle. The look on his face is enough to make Lily sick to her stomach. Harry is left with his blocks while Lily and James talk with Sirius, who tells them.

Dorcas Meadows was killed.

"But she was in hiding," James says vehemently, as though convinced Sirius is mistaken.

Sirius nods, his mouth a thin, grim line. "I know. She didn't tell us who her Secret Keeper was, though, and the bastard must've given her up. Moldy Voldy came to her house and killed her and her brother, leaving them to rot." His hands are fisted. "And we'll never know who betrayed them."

"It was someone in the Order," Lily whispers.

James shakes his head. "No."

"It was," Lily repeats. "It was someone that Dorcas could trust, and she didn't tell anyone else who it was lest she accidentally tell the real spy." She rubs her wedding ring with her thumb. "But the one person she told, the one person she trusted, _was_ the real spy — it's the only real explanation for it."

"Someone in the Order is a traitor," Sirius says, "and he's gonna get us all killed. We're not safe."

"The people in the Order are our _friends_," James insists. "I trust them."

"Don't be stupid, Prongs," Sirius snaps, and James look ready to lose it.

He doesn't have the chance. Because Harry, pouting in the corner, unhappy to have to knock his blocks down himself, calls out loudly. "Play!" They're stunned, spinning around to look at him. He isn't phased, blinking at them with large, impatient green eyes. He waves a block through the air.

The excitement hits them suddenly, and they surround Harry in an instant.

"Oh, what did you say, big boy? Tell Mama what you want to do, Harry. Do you want to play?"

"Do you want play, huh? That's my boy! Do you want to play, Harry?"

"Listen to you, you bloody genius! Sorry, Gail. Sorry. Just came out."

Harry is immensely pleased with himself after that, generously handing blocks to everyone as they fawn over him. "Play," he says, and they play until Harry is drooping against Lily with exhaustion.

But Lily lies in bed that night, James toying with her hair, his chest warm against her cheek, and she can't help worrying. "Who are we supposed to trust?" she whispers. "I know you don't want to believe that anyone in the Order would betray us, but are you willing to stake Harry's life on it?"

He doesn't answer for a long time. "Voldemort could come through the door at any moment," he says at last. "But I'm not going to let anything happen to Harry. I'm not." He shifts, looking at her.

"I know," she says. She bites her lip. "There's Sirius. We could trust him as our Secret Keeper."

James nods. "Or Remus," he says. "Or Peter."

"But could we trust anyone else?" she asks. "_Can_ we trust anyone else?"

He turns to wrap his arm around her, and his voice is thick. "I don't know."

* * *

Emmeline Vance gives Lily a camera for her birthday.

She takes more pictures than she can count, and every single one features Harry. After they're developed, her favorite is the single picture with James. Harry is in his lap as they play, and the picture captures James making Harry laugh before he kisses him wetly on the cheek. Lily loves it.

* * *

Halloween comes, and Lily knows what that means. It's the same every year.

James puts Harry to bed, reappearing in the living room with a grin on his face.

She shakes her at him. "M'm too tried," she protests.

He flicks his wand, making music plays on the radio. She starts to tell him that he'll wake Harry, but he isn't deterred. He bows dramatically, holding out his hand. "It's tradition," he says. Sighing, she gives him her hand, and he tugs her off the couch. "And you know you can't resist dancing with me."

"Hardly," she says, hands on his shoulders. But it's true, of course; James never misses a step, and Lily loves dancing with him, loves how he sweeps her off her feet, how she is weightless when she dances with him. He says his natural talent is behind it; she thinks the ballroom dancing lessons he was forced to attend for six years as a child are more likely.

He dips her, ginning like the cat that caught the canary, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

"How about a story?" he asks. She rolls her eyes, flicking her finger lightly against his neck.

He holds up their arms, circling her, another complicated wizarding dance that she doesn't know, and he doesn't wait for her to answer. "A few years ago, on this very night, a miracle happened."

She gasps mockingly at him, but he ignores her, starting in on the silly story that he loves to tell about what he calls their first date and what was, in reality, simply the time they danced at the Death Day party that Sir Nicholas hosted. It's the same every year, the story as James tells it, word for word, and Lily wraps her arms around his shoulders, letting him have at it.

He goes on and on, making up dialogue, talking in a high voice to imitate her.

"It's universally agreed, of course," he says, "that decaying fish is an aphrodisiac."

She nods. "Of course."

"And, thus, rotten fish carrying away their worries, that was the moment, as they danced in that chilly, charming atmosphere, that Lily Evans realized she was madly, madly in love with James Potter."

As always, he finishes with a flourish.

His eyes find hers, and she winkles her nose, laughing when he dips her suddenly. But he draws her up a moment later, kissing her, and she nuzzles her nose against his. "I love you," she breathes.

"Obviously," he replies. "Weren't you _listening_, Lily?"

She laughs, letting him steer her towards their bedroom.

* * *

They never last, the stolen, happy moments.

* * *

The twins are dead.

They went down fighting, but Lily can't fathom that Gideon and Fabian are gone. She can't. But, somehow, she can. No one is invincible, and Voldemort is picking them off, isn't he? Harry fusses, feverish, and Lily stays up through the night trying to calm him. It's as though he understands, screaming and screaming, because he is allowed to scream, and she isn't. She is supposed to be strong. She is supposed to keep fighting. She is supposed to be brave. She feels like anything but.

She stops counting how many deaths have stolen into her life.

One, two, a dozen, a hundred.

Remus reads the deaths in the Daily Prophet every morning, and Lily can't help thinking that at least James isn't on the list, at least the boys aren't on the list, at least her sweet, small son is safe.

The first time Gideon held Harry, he blew raspberries onto his stomach. Harry loved it.

Harry fusses and screams and cries, and Lily cries with him.

* * *

Dumbledore suggests that they go into hiding. Everyone in the Order needs to do it.

Lily doesn't like the idea. She feels as though they're abandoning the world to fall apart, but, well, they're being _forced_ into hiding, aren't they? She remembers Dorcas Meadows, though, killed after she went into hiding, and smoky, heavy terror settles in her gut as her eyes jump around the small, cramped meeting room. These are her friends, her _family_, but someone in this room killed Dorcas.

Dumbledore suggests that they use the Fidelius Charm.

Lily wants Sirius to be their Secret Keeper. He would die before he let anything happen to them.

They move into an old, decrepit cottage, performing the spell to keep themselves a secret.

* * *

Hogwarts falls. James was at the battle to save the school; he watched Frank Longbottom die to defend it. In the end, he fled with Sirius, because the battle was lost, and the school was taken over.

* * *

Lily tries to repair the dilapidated cottage. James leaves on missions for days at a time, but she can't come with him the way she did years ago. They have to think about Harry. Some days, Lily doesn't mind. She peels off the dirty, old wallpaper in the kitchen and paints a fresh, soft green that matches the curtains she sews, and she spells the rust from the toilet and scrubs everything until the place sparkles. It's satisfying, making a house a home, and Harry toddles around, keeping her company.

She litters trinkets around the house, finding the perfect place for the dream catcher that Marlene gave her in fifth year, for the novelty salt and pepper shakers that Sirius bought as a wedding gift, for the books that belonged to her grandfather.

That's some days, though. On most days, she feels as though she is going absolutely barmy.

She wants to go _out. _She wants to do something, to make a difference, to fight.

She leaves the house, of course, for groceries, for Order meetings, for funerals. That's it. She isn't doing anything for the war.

They talk a couple times about the possibility that James stay at the house with Harry while Lily helps the Order, but those conversations end the same way every time. James can't handle the idea that she would be out there in danger without him. She wants to hate him for that, but the best she can manage is resentment.

Harry babbles at her as she gives James a cold shoulder. He crawls across the kitchen, eager for her attention, and she thinks he is the reason she _hasn't_ lost her mind yet. He is her constant companion, wanting her to read with him, to draw with him, to play with him. She sits him on the kitchen counter, letting him drool in the batter as she bakes, and she tickles him until he dissolves into giggles as they sing along with the Muggle radio.

She tries to pretend that she doesn't resent her husband for leaving her trapped in this house to care for his son.

She loves Harry. He is _her_ son, too, and she knows that James is fighting _for_ them. But. Still.

Why is he allowed to fight for them while she stays safely at home, but she isn't allowed to do the same while _he_ remains safely at home?

He leaves for a mission, and he doesn't return when he is supposed to. She panics. She sends word to Dumbledore, but his response is useless. He doesn't know what happened, and she waves away the smoky animal as she paces the living room. Another day, and she can't sleep, eat, see straight.

It's two in the morning when the door slams open and the boys come barreling in.

James is caked with mud, sweat, and blood, but she hugs him around the neck and won't let go.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, "I'm sorry, we were caught, and — and we were supposed to be on reconnaissance, but they were torturing children, Lily, and _raping_ — they overpowered us —" He trembles against her, his fingers digging into her jumper, and he tries to tell her how they escaped, but he isn't making any sense. She presses her nose into his neck, clutching him, breathing him in.

His fingers dig into her sides, and she takes his face in her hands, placing kisses along his cheek.

Remus catches her eye, a bloodied cloth held to his ear, but he is standing, alive. Sirius roots through the fridge as Peter slumps into a seat at the kitchen table, and they're alive.

Harry must hear the commotion, because he comes stumbling into the room, dragging his teddy bear. His sleepy face brightens. "Dada, home! Dada, home!" Swiping at tears, Lily breaks away from James, who reaches out to catch Harry, running as fast as his chubby little legs can carry him.

"Hey, buddy," James murmurs, kissing him.

Harry squirms. "Dada, smelly," he declares, scrunching up his nose, making James laugh.

The night wears on, and the boys explain the entire story to her as they eat.

They're bloodied and bruised. Between the four, Lily counts six broken ribs, three fractured wrists, a dozen nasty cuts, and too many purpling bruises to keep track. Remus is the worst off, a terrible, raised gash under his ear, and her hands shake as she makes him the potion for replenishing blood.

As soon as Lily will let him, Remus takes off to report to Dumbledore. The moon is fading, and Peter leaves to check in with his mother while Sirius claims the couch, snoring within minutes. James needs to rest, too. But the moment Lily follows him into the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind herself, he drags her over, hoisting her up, and setting her on the bed with a kiss.

She doesn't try to stop him.

He kisses her like a dying man, trying to draw the breath from her lungs into his own. His hands are everywhere, running through her hair, cupping her breasts, pushing her nightgown up, tearing down her panties far enough to spread her legs. His own trousers don't fall past his knees when he thrusts into her. She brackets his hips with her legs, fisting her hands into his knotted hair. His hands bruise her thighs, and she knows there'll be marks in the morning, but she doesn't care. Those bruises are proof that he was with her, that he came home, that he survived.

He starts to cry, mumbling nonsensically into her mouth, but she understands. He thought he was going to die, and that would've been it. He would never have come home, never have seen her again, and she might never have found his body, never have known what happened. She shifts, rolling her hips, fucking him as she holds his face in her hands.

His forehead falls to her shoulder as he finishes, and she kisses his stubbled cheek.

"It can't go on like this," she whispers. "Nothing is changing, and — and I'm trapped in this house, going mental, and you're gone for days at a time, fighting, I know, and I can't hate you for that, but I do, I _hate_ you, because I don't know where you are or what's happening, and you could _die_ —"

She digs her fingers into his arms, and she is _losing_ it.

He starts to kiss her neck, wet, messy kisses, his nose nuzzling her throat. "What do I do?"

She takes his face in her hands. "James," she begs.

He looks at her, his gaze glossy with tears. "I know," he says. "I know it can't go on like this, but I don't know what to do, Lily. I don't — tell me. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. I'm fighting as hard as I can, but for every life we save a dozen are lost, and I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do, Lily. Tell me, and I'll do it."

She shakes her head, pulling him to her, his head between her breasts.

"There's nothing to do," she says, because there's not. Except —

There's fighting. There's going on like they have been. That's all they can do.

* * *

She goes to see Petunia.

Her sister hasn't changed in the years since they buried their parents and Petunia told Lily that she didn't want to have anything to do with her. She lives in the same boring house, married to the same terrible man, concerning herself with the same inane things. Lily surprises her, but Petunia remembers how to sneer as she puts a kettle on for Lily. Her son is in a high chair, eating noisily.

She didn't think a two-year-old could be that large.

"What do you want?" Petunia asks. "I don't suppose you've left your husband."

"No," Lily says, sighing. "I haven't left him." She pauses. "We have a son. I wrote you about him."

Petunia nods. "I'm aware. I've received your letters."

"Right," Lily says. "I guess you don't want to catch up. Fine. I've come to warn you. I don't know whether you remember, but the Wizarding world is at war, and things have taken a terrible turn." She doesn't know how to explain. "People like me, magical people born into non-magical families, they're being targeted. The evil wizard who started the war hates us, and he is gaining more and more power every day. Petunia, you need to go into hiding, or they'll find you."

Petunia stares at her. "_I'm_ not magical," she says.

"No, but you're my sister, and they might try to hurt you in order to hurt me." She isn't surprised at the way her sister reacts, pursing her lips and scowling at Lily as she snaps that she isn't an irresponsible freak who can go on the run at the drop of a hat, thank you very much. "Please," Lily says. "If you're worried about money, I can help you. I can pay for your plane tickets to Australia."

"I'm not going anywhere," Petunia says. "Vernon is essential to his firm. We can't leave."

Her shoulders are squared, ready for a fight. This is what Lily expected.

She can't help her disappointment, though.

She nods. "Okay. But I warned you. If you change your mind, ring me at this number." She holds out the small scrap paper to Petunia, who frowns, sipping her tea rather than taking the paper. Lily sets the scrap on the table, standing. "I know you don't believe me, but I do love you. Very much. I don't want anything to happen to you." Petunia doesn't reply, and Lily sighs. "I'll see myself out."

* * *

Harry sprouts up like a weed, turning two, turning three. It takes her a while to potty train him, because he can't bother to stop to tell her he needs to use the potty, not when he is busy running in every direction, making as much noise as possible, and tirelessly turning every room upside down.

But he learns, and he starts to talk to her, too, _really_ talk, saying what he wants and what he thinks. He takes the books away from her at night, pretending to read them, and he asks endless questions, strange, silly questions that make her smile, why can't he see his nose when both his eyes are open, why is he supposed to brush his teeth, why can't cats talk, and every answer earns more questions.

Her baby is a person, a tiny, talking person.

He goes through phases, not wanting to eat this, not wanting to do that. Her favorite is the naked phase, when he likes to tear off his clothes the moment she isn't looking in order to run around gleefully without a stitch on.

She tries to chase after him at first, prodding, pleading. "Mummy is wearing her shirt, baby boy," she wheedles. "Good little boys like to wear pants, Harry." But it isn't as though he is bothering anyone when he runs amok without clothes, and she starts to let him have his way on most days.

Time marches on, and he grows bigger.

His fancies change, but flying remains his favorite.

It started when he wasn't yet a year old, and James would hoist him in the air and run around, making zooming noises as Harry gurgled in delight. At three years old, Harry begs Lily to use the floating charm on him, and he won't take his toy broom out from between his legs, waddling around the house with it, trying to sit at the kitchen table without relinquishing the beloved toy.

James talks about Quidditch with him endlessly. Harry is desperate to play, but it's too dangerous for James to take him out on a broom, let alone to try to play with a Quaffle or to set a Snitch loose.

Someday, James says. When you're at Hogwarts, when you're in Gryffindor.

Harry believes him, excited about someday, puffing out his chest as he calls himself a Gryffindor, and Lily wants to believe him, too. She thinks she might, in fact, at least for a short, sweet moment, insulated in their cottage, together, alive, as though war isn't on, as though Hogwarts isn't overrun with Death Eaters, as though James isn't going to disappear on a mission at any moment.

But, of course, Dumbledore wants someone to infiltrate the ministry, and James disappears on a mission. Harry isn't bothered; Dada leaves, but Dada comes back, and that's how it's always been.

His life is carefree, and his whole world is this cottage.

* * *

The Ministry falls on a Wednesday afternoon. Lily doesn't have any tears left to cry.

It was inevitable, honestly; the Minister was made a puppet for Voldemort months ago.

She can't imagine how anything could get worse.

But, six days later, James shakes Lily awake, because someone set fire to the street, and every house is burning, including theirs. They grab Harry, and they're out the door. No one notices them appear from nowhere; she can hear the Muggle ambulances in the distance, and her innocent neighbors are gathered in the street, wrapped in blankets, horrified as they watch their homes burn.

"Do you think something happened to Sirius?" Lily asks. Harry squirms against her, wanting to be set on his feet, but she clutches him closer, terrified. James shakes his head, and they hurry from the chaos. As soon as they're alone, James sends a message to Sirius, telling him what happened.

Lily can barely breathe, certain that the message will return unheard, the recipient dead.

It seems like ages, but a message never returns; instead, Sirius appears, becoming visible as he steps off his invisible motorcycle. He is panicked, stumbling towards them, picking Lily up off the ground when he hugs her, closing his eyes as he embraces James. He explains that Peter is at the flat with Remus. They're safe. The fire must've simply been targeting a Muggle community where a famous wizard used to live.

The Potters weren't the intended victims.

James nods, clearly relieved. "I thought they had you, and —" He doesn't finish. Sirius nods, and Lily hugs Harry a little tighter.

Voldemort rules England, but Sirius is safe. They're alive, and they survive another night.

* * *

They move into a crowded flat in London with the boys, and Dumbledore suggests another Fidelius Charm. He is insistent; there isn't any reason not to. Lily assumes that Sirius will do it.

He agrees to it, but a few days later, when he comes home to perform the spell, he is bursting with a brilliant idea, having dragged Peter with him. "They won't suspect Peter," he says, clearly pleased with himself as he claps Peter on the shoulder and looks to them. James agrees. But Lily hesitates.

It's not that she doesn't trust Peter, or love him.

But he isn't the most courageous person, is he? If he were tortured, he couldn't keep a secret.

She can't find a way to say that, though, when the boys are looking at her, waiting, expectant.

"Are you sure about this?" she asks Peter, and she refuses to be ashamed at her hope that he balks.

He smiles, nodding. "Don't worry," he tells her. "I can keep a secret."

* * *

The resistance, or what's left, is coming apart at the seams. The death count is spiraling up, claiming Alastor Moody, and there are few left in the Order who trust Remus. The bitterness starts to overtake him, but he won't listen to Lily when she argues the point with him.

"I'm a werewolf," he insists.

She crosses her arms over her chest. "I'm a ginger. But you already knew that, didn't you?"

He shakes his head at her. "I'm a creature that isn't meant to keep company with civilized people!"

She refuses to let him wallow in hate for himself. He is as fit to keep company with civilized people as anyone. He isn't the traitor in the Order. And as long as there _is_ a traitor amongst them, the Order needs wizards like Remus, no matter what anyone else says. She tells him that she loves him, that James trusts him, that Harry needs him. She convinces herself that she convinced him.

A few days later, he offers to fetch milk.

James is making eggs, Sirius is playing with Harry, and Lily is reading through the Prophet.

It's the same as any other day, and they need milk. He heads out.

But Lily chases after him. "Wait!" She catches him in the street, her hand on his shoulder. "Here. To pay for it." She pushes the coins into his hand, and she smiles. "Hurry," she says. "I'll need your help to put out the fire that James is bound to start with his eggs." She wants him to smile.

He manages it. A smile, and he disappears down the street.

He shouldn't be gone for more than half an hour. Except he is. Gone. For an hour, a day, a week.

For good. He never comes back.

* * *

"He must've been the traitor," Emmeline says, sour. "This proves it."

Lily glares at her. "This is proof that he _wasn't_," James replies. "Why would the traitor disappear? No, I'm telling you, he was caught. We need to find out where he is being kept, and we need to —"

"To what? Risk our lives to save a werewolf?" Morgan scoffs.

"No one was talking to you," Sirius growls. Morgan is new to the Order, invited to join alongside seventeen young, angry witches and wizards who wanted to start an underground resistance and stumbled across the Order. Morgan shakes his head, slumping in his seat. His eyes dart to Harry, and his mouth thins. He hasn't hesitated to make his feelings clear, telling them that James is soft, that Lily should stay at home with her son, that Dumbledore isn't fit to lead anymore.

Morgan isn't in charge, though.

"We do not have any evidence that Remus is a traitor," Dumbledore says, calmly cutting through the anger. "But neither do we have any idea where he is, or what happened to him. I'm afraid there is nothing we can do for him until learn more, and yesterday I learned disturbing news that we must address." He carries on, changing the subject, forgetting Remus. It's how the Order works, how they're forced to work; they can't linger on a single wizard.

Lily hates it, unable to listen to what he says. Remus is in trouble. He needs them.

But this is a war, and people die.

Marlene, Benjy, Dorcas, Gideon, Fabian, Alastor, a thousand others.

And, according to Dumbledore, the Ministry under the Death Eaters has started hauling people into large, overrun fields with shoddy warehouses built overnight, slums where those considered inferior are herded to live, starved and belittled and abused, used for slave labor. It's twisted. They're registering them as menial creatures, and they're putting them in the slums.

The Menial District. That's what they call it, the makeshift shantytowns for the menial beings with menial blood.

The Death Eaters have reserved Azkaban for the traitors, those who need to be taught to respect their bloodlines. Andromeda Tonks is in Azkaban. Sirius pales when Dumbledore says it. His cousin is in Azkaban, and her husband is in the Menial District. Dumbledore isn't certain, but he believes her daughter is in the district, too; the girl isn't yet thirteen, but she is defined as an abomination, a halfblood who never should've been born, who deserves starvation, exploitation, death.

Dumbledore explains everything in a steady, solemn voice, discussing what they should do about it.

Lily leans into James, her mouth dry, and pretends to believe that the Order can do _anything_ about it.

* * *

Remus never returns. They assume the worst.

* * *

Autumn fades quickly into winter that year, the cold seeping into everything. The skies stay stormy for days at a time, wet, sticky snow blanketing the streets, hiding the war under white gauze. Lily doesn't mind until a blizzard in December knocks out the electricity, and the flat ushers in the cold.

They can't use magic to stay warm, or they'll have Snatchers knocking on the door.

James seals the windows shut as best he can, Sirius buys camping gear in town, and Harry starts to sleep sandwiched in between James and Lily in the bed, bundled in quilts. They wear coats, gloves, and scarves around the flat, lighting candles as they watch their breath billow up in the chilly air.

"Mummy, my nose's _frozen_," Harry whines, wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing his face into her side, looking up at her with doleful eyes.

James clucks his tongue. "Better be careful, buddy," he says, shaking his head mournfully at Harry, "or your nose'll turn to ice." He whistles, tapping Harry on the nose. "It'll fall right off."

Alarmed, Harry claps his hand over his nose. "Mummy, my nose's gonna fall off!"

James promises him that they can prevent it, and they spend the evening with handkerchiefs wrapped around their faces to cover their noses, hopping from foot to foot, pretending to be fire, because, after all, that's what you're supposed to do to keep your nose from freezing and falling off.

Harry sleeps that night with his nose buried in Lily's shoulder. Reaching over his head, she touches James, tracing her fingers over his cheek. She can see his smile in the light seeping from the split in the curtains. She flicks the bump in the bridge of his nose. He catches her hand, kissing her wrist.

They try to find ways to distract themselves, but the cold lasts, becoming more unbearable with every passing hour.

After three days, cursing about how he can't stand the living in an igloo, Sirius leaves on a mission with Peter.

Lily wakes up in a quiet house, Harry curled up like a cat against her stomach. She is warm under the sheets, and she is tempted to pull her head under, to burrow away in the thick, soft quilts. But James isn't in the room, and she can't spend the day in bed. She forces herself to worm her way out from under the blankets, tucking them securely around Harry. She slept in her coat, a jumper underneath and pajama bottoms on over leggings, but she tugs on gloves and grabs a wooly scarf.

Padding into the kitchen in thick socks stolen from James, she finds him trying to cook sausages over a little fire he started on the stove. A dozen used matches litter the counter, and his tongue is held beneath his teeth as he concentrates on the task. He grins when he sees her. "I'm ingenious."

She snorts. He abandoned a blanket on the ground, and she wraps the fuzzy throw around her shoulders, sinking to sit on the floor against the cabinets. "Boil water for my tea, and I'll believe it."

"It'll be the best tea you've ever tasted," he replies.

She closes her eyes. "The cold is exhausting." It is, draining her, dampening whatever fight was left inside her. James nudges her knee with his foot, drawing her attention up, and he smiles at her.

"My sausage will warm you up," he says, holding up a sausage on a fork.

She shakes her head, pulling her knees to her chest and hiding her legs in the blanket.

Again, he nudges her with his foot. "Aw, come on, that was worth a chuckle."

"I don't feel like chuckling at your dirty jokes, James," she snaps, but she sighs as soon as the words leave her mouth. She doesn't mean to snap at him. "I'm tired," she apologizes, "and I'm — I'm not in the mood." She feels like a coiled spring, anxious, losing it. She is restless, trapped in this flat, the urge to scream overwhelming her, and she wants to pound her fists into the wall.

James moves to sit beside her, uncomfortably close, eating bangers with his fingers.

"Have a bite," he encourages, grinning, holding out a greasy, split sausage.

She elbows him. "I mean it, James."

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says. It's quiet. She glances at him, and, as she suspected, his expression is absurd, contorted in his attempt not to smirk; his lips curl, his cheeks twitch with the effort to stop the smile, and he makes an exaggerated effort at a serious expression. It's ridiculous.

"Stop it," she mutters.

"I'm not doing anything," he replies. "I don't know what you're on about."

"Stop," she insists, but she is unable to help the stupid smile that starts to tug at her lips, too.

He leans closer, nosing her cheek. "I'm not doing anything," he repeats, childish, teasing her.

She shoves him, and he laughs, ducking, tugging on her legs to pull her under him. She tries to wiggle away, but he snorts and slobbers against her neck, making her laugh, his hands trying to slip under her clothes, coming upon layer after layer. "I'm starting to think there's not a real person under here," he exclaims. A moment later, icy hands find her stomach, and she squeals, shoving his arm.

He kisses her wetly, greedily, laughter like a taste on his tongue.

"You're stealing my warmth!" she protests, biting his lip, trying to escape.

He rubs his cheek against her neck. "I can't help it," he says, and his fingers strum against her belly, tickling her, making her cry from laughter. She manages to snake her hands under his clothes, though, running along his back and dipping under his pants to palm his ass. He bucks against her. "Want it to be like that, do you?" he breathes, grinning, nipping at her earlobe, playful.

"Anything to keep warm," she replies, pushing her breasts into his hands.

Her coat is gaping open, and he pushes her jumper and her blouse up to her neck, exposing her stomach to the cold air, but he presses warm kisses against the goosebumps. "I love you, too."

He crawls up her, his hand slipping into her pants, rubbing against her, and —

"I want to play!" Harry exclaims, his head bobbing into view. "I want to play!" He stumbles into the kitchen, and James rolls off Lily. James flops onto his stomach, muffling a groan. Hastily adjusting her clothes, Lily opens her arms, smiling for Harry, who bounds over, delighted, his messy hair sticking up in the back, his eyes bright, his sweet little belly protruding from his small, bony frame.

James is motionless.

"Dad?" Harry asks, curious, skidding to a stop and rocking on his heels. "What're you playing?"

"Well," Lily says, reaching forward to snag him around the waist. "We're playing tickle monster!"

She slips her fingers under his dancing teddy bear pajamas to tickle his tummy, and his childish laughter rings loudly through the kitchen as he tries to escape her grasp. James recovers, joining in.

Lily can see her breath, swirling up into the cold, but the kitchen is warm for a little while.

* * *

The next to disappear is Dumbledore.

He isn't taken, or killed. But he tells them that there is something he needs to do, a mission he must undertake alone in order to defeat Voldemort. James protests, and Lily tells Dumbledore that he doesn't need to do anything by himself. They're ready to help him, she says; they want to help him.

He smiles, thanking her. But the next day he is gone. He isn't caught, or dead. He is working to defeat Voldemort, doing something that must be done, and any day he could do it, ending the war.

But —

Months pass, and they don't hear a word from him. Or about him. Nothing.

As a hot, humid summer dawns, she realizes that she isn't waiting for him to return, to end the war, to save them. He isn't going to come back, and she doesn't have the heart to pretend that he is.

* * *

They host an Order meeting at their flat.

The electricity was finally restored, and their flat is under the Fidelius Charm.

Harry is in bed, and the living room is cramped with chairs dragged in from every room to seat the twenty odd members as they discuss communications with the Wizarding community in France, under attack from Voldemort. Lily isits on the sofa, sandwiched between Peter, who won't stop twitching, and Sirius, who is restless, tapping his foot, sighing, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

James is on the ground, leaning against her legs as he snacks on peanuts.

He holds up his arm, twisted awkwardly, to offer her a few, and someone blasts open the door.

In an instant, her living room becomes a battlefield.

Sirius sends the sofa crashing backwards when he leaps up to fight, and Lily draws her own wand, magic warming the air as Death Eaters stream endlessly into the flat. She glances at the bedroom door behind which her five-year-old son sleeps; she needs to get to him. She needs to get him out.

But everything is happening too quickly, and she can't see James, and she can't see Sirius, and her eyes land on Peter. He is backed against the wall, a queasy look marring his pale face, and smoky despair crawls up her throat when his eyes meet hers. His lips twist, and he lifts his wand, advancing.

Oh, God.

She stumbles, and a spell brushes her cheek, singeing the skin.

She doesn't feel it, can't, not really, not when the world is falling to pieces. Another spell catches her leg, though, and she hits the wall, blacking out for a moment. She looks up, stomach swirling with sick, to see a Death Eater looming over her. She doesn't recognize him, but his face is mangled, the skin on his forehead melted from a nasty burn to hang over his eye, a fleshy pink web. He raises his wand, but an explosion rocks the flat, pitching everything off, sending a crack through the ground. The building is shaking, the crack spreading, and Lily scrambles to her feet.

Death Eaters continue to pour into the flat; this is it, their battle to take out the resistance.

Those that aren't dead yet have to Apparate, to get out, to survive. But Lily can't leave without Harry.

She sees two Death Eaters bash open the bedroom door, but she disarms one, starting a duel with the other. She needs to reach him, needs to get to him. The air starts to crackle, though; an unnatural heat pops along her skin, and that means the Death Eaters are putting an anti-Apparation charm on the flat.

They have to get out before the charm is in place, or that's it. They're dead.

She is almost to the bedroom when another explosion sends shocks through everyone, shaking the building, knocking Lily to her knees, and lighting the curtains on fire. She looks up from the floor.

The air starts to melt.

Time stops moving forward, and everything seems to happen at once.

James screams for Lily. She sees him, struggling to get to her. But he is across the room. He tries to reach her, and a curse strikes his back. She watches him crumple to the ground. Emmeline shouts for death as three Death Eaters surround her, screaming at them to kill her, do it, kill me, you bloody beasts, kill me. James scrambles to his feet. Morgan flies backwards, the Killing Curse hitting him square in the chest; he lands against the wall, his head tilted on his shoulder. A Death Eater stares at her with glinting eyes. She hears the whisper, her name, "Lily," and she hates him.

With everything in her, she hates Severus Snape.

She can't stop the Death Eaters from surging into the bedroom where Harry is.

She tries, rising to her feet, but a spell strikes her with a chill, freezing her, paralyzing her, and she falls, her face smashing in the ground. The pain is overwhelming, branding her skin with an agony latticework, sinking into her, splintering her bones. She tries to push herself up, and she hears him.

Harry, screaming. But —

Sound pauses as the air blurs, and she spots James, trying desperately to reach her, his glasses crooked on his face. But Sirius wraps his arms around James, dragging him away; Lily imagines she can hear the crack when they Apparate. The air is distorted, like looking through broken glass.

The anti-Apparation charm falls into place.

Abruptly, the air clears, and noise blasts her ears, spells and screams and slaughter.

She can't count the Death Eaters that surround them. They're everywhere. It doesn't matter.

All she can hear is the mantra in her head, her heart beating in time with it. Harry, Harry, Harry.

Sirius took James to safety. Lily needs to reach Harry, and she'll find a way to get him out, and they'll meet up with the boys. She manages to move to her knees, but a heel jabs into her spine, forcing her flat against the ground.

A moment later, someone turns her over, sending a sharp, fresh pang through her swollen nose. The room is quiet, she realizes, blinking, and a face looms over her, a white, misshaped, cruel face with right red eyes that gaze disinterestedly down at her. Voldemort tilts his head, and Harry screams for her.

She struggles to reach him. She can't.

She can't move or breathe or see. Her heart is still beating, though. Harry, Harry, Harry.

Voldemort presses his foot into her neck. "A cockroach," he hisses, "refusing to be killed."

Her vision swims, and her throat burns. She blacks out, but someone laughs.

This isn't the end. Sirius escaped, taking James with him. Others must've fled. But this is her end.

She can't find any fear inside herself. But. Harry. She can hear him screaming. Please, please. Someone, save him. He is a baby. James, save him. Lily feels her body rise, and this must be dying. Abruptly, his screaming cuts off.

Harry, Harry, Harry.

She blacks out.

* * *

She awakes with a jolt, her head hitting the wall. The ground is unsteady underneath her. She blinks. The smell hits; the air is thick with it, unwashed bodies, sweat, and piss. It's a train car, she realizes. She is on a train. Her head aches, her tongue is dry in her mouth, and her nose throbs.

It's hard to see in the semi-darkness, but at least two dozen people are jammed in around her.

The memories come to her as forcefully as the smell, and she chokes, her heart lodged in her throat.

She tries to stand, looking for Harry. Her body protests, a fresh wave of pain wracking her.

She doesn't know how she is alive, why they didn't kill her, but she _is_ alive. What about Harry?

Strangers surround her, women with expressionless eyes, men with hollow faces. The light creeping in from the covered windows is enough to illuminate the resignation that unites everyone.

The train lurches, and Lily hits the wall, sinking back into her seat. Harry. She needs to find him.

Where is she? Why is she alive? Who else is? James is. He survived, escaping with Sirius.

What about everyone else in the Order?

Harry, she remembers. She needs to find Harry. He is a baby, and he can't look after himself. She'll find James, and she'll find Sirius; the resistance will regroup. The fight will carry on. First, she needs to find Harry. She needs to focus on finding him. She takes a deep breath.

It smells like dead bodies. She breathes through her mouth.

* * *

They've packed too many people into the car.

She tries to assess herself. Her nose is broken, and dried blood coats a nasty cut on her temple. She thinks she might've broken a few ribs, but the pain is bearable. She doesn't have her wand. She tries to talk to the miserable souls packed in around her, to find out where they're headed. Only one person bothers to answer, a woman with wispy hair framing a thin face. "The Menial District," she says.

Lily stares. "Thank you," she murmurs.

This is a train chalk full with people who were rounded up simply because they have dirty blood, and they're on their way to the Menial District. The Death Eaters didn't see fit to kill her, or to take her to Azkaban as a traitor; no, she is a Mudblood, and the Menial District is where she belongs.

She doesn't ask anything else.

The others have luggage with them, held in their laps, pushed between their feet, whatever meager possessions they must've been able to gather. She wonders whether they'll be able to keep it or not.

It's hours and hours before the train slows to a stop; the door doesn't open for another hour after that. At long, long last, they're herded off, and a loud, awful chaos reigns as people try to find their family, pushing, shouting. The sunlight blinds Lily, but she isn't different from anyone else. She pushes through the crowd, shouting for Harry, desperate to find him among the crowds that stream from the other cars. She used to claim she could recognize her boys anywhere with their dark, unruly hair.

But she can't find Harry with his sweet, messy mop no matter where she looks.

She shouts for him, over and over. Her voice is lost among others.

Guards in black, uniform robes yell at the arrivals, shoving them towards the gates, the huge, imposing iron wrought gates, rising high, extending to the left and to the right as far as Lily can see. The Menial District is gated in, a world onto itself. She isn't ignorant. She knows history.

A ghetto is what they'd call it.

The guards force everyone into lines, tapping people with their wands. They must be using a spell, because people cringe and shout, stumbling to do as they're told. Slowly, snaking lines form, leading past the gate towards guards with parchment, wands outstretched, faces grim. Lily can't see what they're doing, but she can't waste her time on it. She needs to find Harry. She shuffles forward with everyone else, her eyes searching the swelling lines, sticking on every child she sees.

Her despair starts to choke her as unfamiliar face after unfamiliar face meets her eye.

She passes the gate. The line continues forward. Lily sees a little girl try to run, screaming for her daddy, and the curse hits her square between the shoulders, killing her. Lily clenches her teeth, and a guard grabs the woman before her in line, thrusting her towards another guard. Lily is at the front, able to watch what the guards have in store for her. But she doesn't have the chance to see.

"MUMMY!"

Harry races towards her, shouting, stumbling, and she tries to reach him, but guards clasp her around the arms. They're going to kill him, and she'll be forced to watch. But a curse doesn't strike him. A guard grabs him around the waist, hauling him forward. They don't kill him. He doesn't stop screaming for Lily, struggling to reach her as they hold him, take his arm, and twist his wrist.

A wand is pressed to his palm, tearing a scream from his throat as they do it, as they brand him. He falls to the ground. A guard kicks him. Someone thrusts Lily forward. Someone else grabs her arm.

The pain sears her palm. "Papers," the guard says, bored.

Lily can't take her eyes off Harry, clutching his hand to his chest as he struggles to his feet, the guards jeering at him. She tries to go to him, but a guard restrains her. She looks at the guard, staring disinterestedly at her. "I don't have papers," she breathes. A moment later, groping hands fumble over her clothes, and they manage to find papers she didn't know were shoved into her pockets.

Harry reaches her. He buries his face against her hip, trembling.

"Lily Evans," the guard reads. "Mudblood. Twenty-five. Single." He eyes Harry. "A dependent." Another guards scratches something against a parchment. "Tenement sixty-seven, number eleven."

The guard behind her shoves her forward, and she drags Harry with her.

She doesn't know where to go, though. They've been released into the camp as though she should.

It doesn't matter. She reaches down, pulling Harry up into her arms. She hasn't carried him a long time, but she clutches him, ignoring the pain in her hand, and takes him as far from the guards as she can. The opening ground where they were registered gives way to narrow streets, as though someone planted a city block in a field. She sinks against a brick wall in an alley, shushing Harry.

"Let Mummy see your hand," she murmurs, kissing his forehead.

It isn't bloody, or burned, but the mark is raised in the skin, an ugly, stretched red scar. A rat. They branded his palm with a rat, and the symbolism makes her seethe. But there isn't anything to do about it. She cradles him against her chest, glancing at the mark on her own hand, sick to her stomach.

A few minutes pass, and he stops shaking, crying quietly into her shirt.

She forces herself to think. They branded them, registered them with papers that Death Eaters must've put in her pocket, and assigned them to tenement sixty-seven, number eleven. A home.

They need to find it. That's somewhere to start, isn't it?

* * *

It doesn't take more than a few weeks to adjust to the Menial District.

This is their life.

They share tenement sixty-seven, number eleven with two sisters from Yorkshire. Lily doesn't mind; they're older, take in seamstress work from outside, and like to dote on Harry, looking after him while Lily works. She is dreadful with a needle, and she isn't the sort that they put on work release.

She needs to work, though, because she needs a ration card to eat.

She manages to earn her ration in the supplies factory, helping prepare basic potions to sell to those who aren't trapped in the district. It's a good job, and she is lucky to have it; the guards run the factories, and they want favors in exchange for jobs. Lily is desperate, but she isn't desperate enough to spread her legs for a guard. But, in the end, a short, squat balding man takes pity on her.

He offers her a job, waving away her thanks with a trembling hand.

He runs the factory, and his hand shake whenever guards are near. She thinks she understands when she sees the ring on his finger. He is man trying to protect his family. He isn't a Death Eater.

The work pays enough to buy the bare essentials, and the ration card is what keeps her alive.

It's what keeps Harry alive, and she won't let him die. She won't.

He loses weight, clothes hanging off him as summer comes to an end, and she sees the children who run amok in the streets, begging and crying, thin as rails, death lining their protruding bones.

She can't help them, but she can help her son.

She uses everything she saved to buy clothes for him as winter creeps closer, and she starts to keep the stove on at night. The flat is two rooms off a narrow corridor, a kitchen and a bedroom; the tenement shares a communal toilet. The sisters use the bedroom, but they help Lily purchase blankets to line the kitchen floor, and she sleeps with Harry, soaking in the warmth from the stove.

She holds Harry as close as she can at night as she falls asleep, yet every time she wakes up she expects to find James beside her, warm against her back, his nose tickling her neck, sprawled on his belly, his arm around her, as close as he can possibly be.

It's hard every time she wakes up to find Harry rather than James. She is glad she is with Harry; she is glad that he is safe, or as safe as he can be. But she started sharing a bed with James when she was seventeen, and she hasn't slept by herself since. He says he can't sleep without hearing her snore. She used to pinch his arm, claiming she doesn't snore, and he would loudly imitate her.

Where is he? What bed is he in? Is he furious with Sirius for dragging him off? He is.

She knows him. He is.

They've spent nights apart; there were several nights apart over the years, in fact, when he was on missions, but it wasn't like this. She would give anything in the world for this to be like that, for her to be certain that James would return in a day or two or three, climbing into bed, kissing her. In those weeks, months, years she stayed in the cottage with Harry while James went off, she used to worry that he wouldn't come back. But that was nothing, she knows that.

It wasn't like this. It was nothing compared to this.

They signed up for this war together, and they've fought in it together.

Now that they're not together anymore, she feels as though she is drowning, and the weight of the water over her is worse every night.

She walks around the district, sussing everything out; the gate is complete, fencing them in, and guards are stationed along it. The small, smelly city was built for them, and there isn't any escape.

It's snowing out when Lily spots the little girl digging through the slush on the ground with a stick.

Her clothes are in tatters, her hair is a matted mane, and her bony knees peek out from holes in her stockings as she squats on the ground. Lily intends to look away, to walk past, to continue on her way from the grocery, but she catches the girl digging her fingers into the slush, bringing up mud.

The streets are littered with children, and Lily tries her best not to think about them.

But the girl tries to eat the mud.

Lily scrambles forward before she thinks about it. "No!"

Terrified, the girl spins around, eyes wide in her emaciated face; she looks as though she is three or four years old, yet Lily suspects she is older, shrunken from starvation. The girl stays perfectly still as Lily approaches, like a frightened animal afraid to move lest a predator attack. Lily tries to smile.

"Don't eat that, sweet girl," she murmurs. "You'll make yourself sick."

The girl stares at her, barely blinking.

Lily tries to think, and her hand travels automatically to the half a potato in her pocket; it was in her lunch at the factory, and she was saving the meager snack for Harry, but she can't help herself when she fishes out the thing. She holds the potato out to the girl, whose big, brown eyes dart to the potato with amazement, but the girl doesn't move a muscle, doesn't reach for the food, doesn't react.

"Have it," Lily encourages.

A moment later, small, grubby fingers brush against her palm, taking the shriveled potato.

Lily doesn't think she'll see the girl again; half a potato isn't enough to save a life. The girl will starve to death, and no one will remember she ever existed, this sweet, starving, scared little girl.

* * *

Harry tugs on her skirt.

They're out in the street, gathering snow to boil on the stove; the pipes are broken, and Lily doubts anyone will repair them for months; she can handle the inconvenience in the winter, but she dreads warmer weather. Harry presses into her side as scoops snow into a dented pot. "Mummy," he whispers, panicked, his fingers digging into her hip, "The man is looking at me, Mummy. Look."

Frowning, Lily glances across the road. The streets fill during the early hours, but people clear paths around the guards, and her eyes land immediately on the man who must have frightened Harry.

Her pulse quickens, but she straightens, meeting his stare.

She imagines he loves how formidable he looks in the dirty, dingy street, standing tall among stooped, fearful souls, wearing his black, billowing robes, a far cry from the grey, patched tatters on those that circle him. His face is carved from stone, his mouth a line under his hooked nose.

It must've been years since someone dared to bully Severus Snape.

He takes a step towards her.

She turns on her heel. "Come on, darling," she says, grasping Harry's hand. She doesn't turn around as she leads Harry into the tenement. She didn't fill an entire pot with snow, but she can collect more later. It's six flights to their flat, and Harry walks slower and slower with every step.

"Mummy," he murmurs, "when is Dad coming to get us?" His earnestly shines in his eyes.

She brushes down his hair, and a few stubborn pieces stick right back up as soon as her hand passes over them. "Soon," she says.

* * *

When she lets herself waste time thinking about it, her hatred for Peter Pettigrew makes her sick.

He was their friend. He was at their wedding, held Harry in his arms moments after the boy was born, laughed with them, cried with them, called them his family, and he was the spy in the Order. Dorcas must've made Peter her Secret Keeper; after all, they were friends. And who would've suspected Peter to be the traitor? No one. But they should've known that he was the rat.

Lily thinks about it, remembering every moment, and she seethes, hands trembling with the hatred raging inside her.

* * *

She feels sluggish for hunger. She used to think that she felt hunger. She used to think it was hunger when she shoved James from his dormitory bed to go fetch her something to eat from the kitchens at Hogwarts. She used to think it was hunger when Harry fussed throughout the day, forcing Lily to postpone lunch to look after him. She used to think she was familiar with hunger.

But that wasn't hunger.

It was barely a taste; real hunger is another animal, gnawing at you, crippling you, killing you.

In some ways, she adjusts to it. She becomes accustomed to a dull ache that leaves her feeling as though her insides are ready to cave in on themselves at any moment. In other ways, though, she never stops wanting _desperately_ to eat. The single thing that matters more is Harry, Harry, Harry.

She refuses to let herself try to help anyone else. It takes everything in her to keep Harry alive.

Her resolve strengthens as months pass, only to shatter when she sees the little girl outside the flat.

The child cowers against the tenement building across the street, but she can't stop the guard from attacking her, spit flying from his mouth as he screams at her, boxing her ears, kicking her stomach. Lily knows that she should ignore the cruelty, should walk past them as though she hasn't seen anything; it's what everyone else in the street is smart enough to do. But that's her little girl.

That's the little girl that she fed months ago.

The guard brandishes his wand like he would a club, and, before she can think about it, Lily intercedes, sprinting forward to slip between the man and the girl. The spell meant for the child strikes Lily across the face like a battering ram, and the blow crashes her shoulders into the bricks.

"Move it," the guard snarls. Lily clenches her jaw, shifting into the slightest crouch, ready for another blow. "Did you hear what I said, you deaf cunt? Move it, or I'll move your fucking face."

Lily doesn't blink. The man grabs her around the neck, shoving her against the wall a moment later, knocking the breath from her lungs. She claws at his wrist, struggling to loosen his grip, which enrages him. He smacks her across the face, pulling her forward to slam her face against the brick.

The pain steals her breath, dotting her vision, and she slumps against the wall. It satisfies the guard at last, though. He lets her drop, his nostrils flaring as he spits scornfully at her, calls her a filthy name, and stalks off.

Her tongue stings suddenly, and she realizes she must've chipped her tooth. It doesn't matter.

Around her, those on the street continue on their way as though nothing happened.

But small, stubby fingers touch her arm.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" Lily asks, squatting to address the girl. Her legs are shaky beneath her, and her face throbs. She can imagine the blackened, swollen bruise forming on her cheek.

The girl drags her foot through the mud on the ground, shy as she mutters her name.

Lily smiles, touching the girl softly on the hand. "I like that name. My name is Lily. I live in the tenement over there, and I was about to make dinner. Would you like something to eat, Hermione?"

* * *

She shouldn't take Hermione in, but the girl doesn't have anyone else.

Lily gives her a bath, and she sees the cuts and the bruises and the scars, and the marks are in places that makes Lily sick. Her hands tremble as she wraps Hermione in a towel. She cuts her hair at her ears rather than trying to untangle the matted curls. "Where are you parents?" she asks her.

Hermione shrugs, quiet.

Lily remembers when the Order talked about the district, Dumbledore said the government was actively trying to find Mudbloods, to round them up, to tag them, to put them in the Menial District. The Order didn't talk about what happened to the Muggle parents with magical children.

Lily lets Hermione have her dinner, and the girl curls up contently on the kitchen floor to sleep.

A few nights later, Lily hears Harry whispering with Hermione under the blanket. He asks her whether she wants to be his best friend. He doesn't have a best friend. Hermione says she doesn't have a best friend, either. They pinky promise to be friends, and Lily smiles despite everything.

The sisters take a shine to Hermione, using scraps from their work to fashion her a yellow, floral dress. Hermione giggles as the sisters praise how pretty she is, and Lily feels something warm inside her aching belly. And she doesn't know why, but she misses James terribly in that moment.

She knows that she shouldn't have taken on the responsibility, but Hermione needs someone to look after her, and Harry needs a friend, and the sisters will help Lily with everything. But less than a month later, the sisters die.

They don't die on the same night; Mary dies on Monday, blood rimming her mouth, and Diane says that she caught tuberculosis. Lily knew it; she was raised with Muggles, she knows Muggle diseases, and she wasn't oblivious to how sickly Mary grew. They sew a bed sheet around Mary and hand her body off to the cart that comes around for the dead every morning. Diane doesn't cry.

But she talks. She talks about her life, about growing up with Mary in Yorkshire. She talks about about her husband, who died in the war against Grindelwald, about her daughter, who died when the Death Eaters broke into their home to round them up.

She talks and talks until Lily wakes up on Thursday, and Diane is dead.

She must've been starving, and she lost the will to fight the moment that she lost Mary; her skin is as dry as paper, hanging loosely off a body that lost too much weight too quickly. Lily kisses her forehead, wraps her in the very sheet on which she lies, and sews together the ends as best she can.

The man in the flat next door helps her carry the body to the cart.

Hermione watches. "Miss Lily," she mumbles, "she was hungry, wasn't she?"

Lily gathers the little girl into her arms. "Yes, she was starving." She hugs her, trying to make a silent promise she shouldn't make.

Harry doesn't say anything at that moment, but a little while later he tugs on her shirt. "Mummy, I'm starving, too," he whispers. His eyes are wide in his face, his lips chapped. "Am I going to die?"

She crouches down beside him, smoothing his hair back. "No, darling. _No_."

He nods, but she isn't sure he believes her.

* * *

She doesn't like to acknowledge the hope hidden inside her, the belief that somehow, someway the boys will come for them. They're the Marauders, and that's what they do, break the rules, sneak into places they shouldn't be, bend the world to their whim. They could do it; they could save them.

She is afraid to dwell on the hope, to expose the wish to the world.

Her body is failing her. Her hands are cold, bloated, easily bleeding when the dry skin cracks, staining her rigid, jagged nails, and she is too exhausted to care; the exhaustion weighs on her shoulders like a heavy coat. To make matters worse, her hearing is worsening every day. The noise from the factory makes her ears ring no matter where she is, a dull buzzing that lingers in her head.

The district is eating at her skin, gnawing at her bones, threading through her veins, killing her.

All that's left is her heart, and she squirrels her hope away inside it.

* * *

The tuberculosis is an epidemic. The Wizarding world can cure the Muggle disease without effort; a simple potion restores a victim to perfect health, but no one in the Wizarding world wants to help the dirty, dying creatures trapped in the Menial District, and the bodies start to smell in the streets.

* * *

Lily helps tend that large, industrial vats used to make brew potions in huge, cheap quantities, and this week they're concocting a beauty supply potion that is supposed to produce a pearly sheen in swirling clouds. But, instead, the potion in every vat starts to bubble, thickening, dark smoke rising off the surface. She isn't sure whether it's her fault, or someone else is to blame. It doesn't matter.

The foreman loses his head, screaming, tearing at his hair, whipping out his wand. He isn't the same man that hired Lily; no, that man disappeared a long time ago. This man is crueler, and he knows he is going to be held accountable for the potion.

He overturns a vat in his terrified fury.

The vats are huge, but his wand upends the smoking potion without any effort; the potion splashes into three people, burning them as they sink, screaming, into the thick, oily potion. Lily tries to run, to escape, but a second vat crashes to the ground, and the potion splashes out in a caustic wave, knocking into another vat, sending the contents through the air as chaos breaks out across the floor.

Lily stumbles with everyone else as she tries to flee, and the last thing she remembers is the pain.

She isn't dowsed in it, but a splash strikes her across the face, and the pain is immediate, overwhelming her, awful, searing, excruciating pain. She blacks out before she hits the ground.

She wakes up in the flat.

It's light out, the sun rising, and the heavy weight on her stomach is Harry, using her as a pillow. She blinks, and her face itches terribly. Her tongue feels swollen, and her ear buzzes worse than ever. But she is alive. She survived, and they must've dropped her off at the flat. She can't believe they bothered. She reaches out, brushing her fingers over a bandage that extends from her collarbone to her ear, cutting across her left cheek. Her skin prickles painfully under the sticky bandage.

She tries to sit up as slowly as she can, careful not to jostle Harry.

Hermione is curled up against her side. The flat smells. Or, she realizes, the smell is coming from her bandage.

She heads to the toilet, assessing herself in the stained mirror. She looks terrible, and she hates to think how terrified the children must've been. She can't believe she survived. She reminds herself how lucky she is as she tries to unravel the bandage, but the sight she finds makes her stomach roll.

The potion must've cut through her skin like a knife, leaving a gash, and the spell used to heal her wasn't powerful enough to spare her a mark. A raised, red scar snakes across her skin, but it _is_ healed, and she can't say the same for her ear. Nobody tended to her ear, and the lobe is a tattered, putrid scrap, hanging from her ear with a few, green strings of skin. Lily can't stand to look at it.

She knows what she needs to do.

As the children sleep, she boils water to wash the bandages that she'll have to reuse, swaps cheap vodka from two rooms over to pour on the poorly healed gash, and finds the sharpest dinner knife.

She cries when she cuts off the infected piece of her ear, gripping the sink to stay standing despite the pain when she splashes alcohol over what remains. By the time Hermione wakes up, Lily is dressed for work, her face bandaged as neatly as she can manage, the pain lessened to a dull throb.

She arrives at the factory to find an unfamiliar foreman growling at her.

Half the faces around her are new, and those that aren't have bandages to match hers.

She isn't sick until she goes behind the factory for lunch and sees the mass grave filled with the bloody, burned remains from the people who weren't lucky enough to suffer a single, small splash.

* * *

A school starts for the children, teaching them how to read, a little arithmetic, and why they're inferior.

Lily takes her children into her lap at night, and she uses charcoal that she steals from the factory to practice writing with them. They write on the table, and she clears everything off with a washcloth when they're finished, leaving dark, dirty smears behind. They practice numbers, too, and the truth.

Harry bites his lip between his teeth as they work, and she holds his little hand in hers, writing his name, _Harry Potter_, because they tell him scornfully that his name is Harry Evans, but they're wrong. They tell him that he is an abomination that shouldn't have been born, but they're wrong.

"What's your last name?" Harry asks Hermione.

She swirls her fingers through the charcoal. "I don't know," she murmurs at last. "Nothing."

Harry seems to think about it, sitting quietly before he leans towards her with shining eyes. "Do you want to share mine?" he offers. "I don't mind. But you can't tell anybody, 'cause it's a secret."

"Okay," Hermione says, the smile creeping shyly into her eyes.

Lily helps her practice, writing the name with a thick charcoal chunk, _Hermione Potter_, and that night, lying in bed, Lily listens as the children whisper. Harry tells Hermione that she can share his mummy, too. "She's the best in the whole world." Lily wants to laugh, or maybe to cry, and she adores them, her sweet, kind little children.

Oh, James, she thinks. James, how you would adore them. James, they're waiting for you.

* * *

It's a Friday night when Harry starts to cough.

Lily stands at the stove, cooking potatoes for dinner, and he sits at the kitchen table, drawing with crayons that the sisters found for him months ago. Hermione doesn't seem to notice, and Harry doesn't appear fazed, but the fit that seizes him startles Lily. She frowns as she glances over at him.

"Do you want something to drink, sweet boy?" she asks.

Harry shakes his head, wiping his mouth.

The world stops in that moment, because Harry drags his hand over his mouth, smearing blood across his cheek. He coughed up blood. Lily feels herself sway on her feet in the cramped, overheated kitchen. He coughed up blood. He isn't frightened, which means this isn't the first time.

He is six years old, and he coughed up blood, and she doesn't have the magic to save him.

* * *

She thinks about trying to separate the kids; she doesn't want Harry to get Hermione sick. But he might've already, and he might've spread the infection to Lily. It's too late. She tries to remember everything she can about TB, but, honestly, she doesn't remember very much. It lasts for months, she thinks. But that's borrowed time, because the ending is inevitable. It's simply slow to kill you. No, she won't think about that. The war might end. They might get out. She might find the ingredients to make him a cure.

She hums herself to sleep on Halloween. She hopes her dreams were happy. She never remembers them.

* * *

"Evans!" It's five in the morning, and someone is pounding on the door. Lily panics, fumbling to wake the children in order to usher them into the pantry. But she isn't able to hide them before the door is kicked in, and a guard narrows his beady eyes at her. "I'm looking for Lily Evans," he snarls, his wand held aloft.

Lily swallows thickly, squaring her shoulders. "I'm she."

He nods, clearing his throat. "Evans, you've been transferred to work crew sixteen, clearing rubble in sector nine. I'll need to sign your papers to present to the guards at the gates; the transport vehicle leaves at six, and you're to report ten minutes prior." He holds out his hands for her papers.

She gapes at him. "I don't understand," she says, shaking her head.

"What's there to understand?" he asks, scowling at her. "You've been assigned to work crew sixteen." He holds up a parchment, reading from it. "Dated 6 March 1987, according to the Office for Distract Affairs, Lily Gail Evans is assigned to work crew sixteen, clearing rubble in sector nine. Her dependent is to accompany her. Any work elsewhere will cease until she is reassigned."

Her heart lodges in her throat.

The guard glances between Harry and Hermione. "Which is yours?" he asks.

"Both," she murmurs. She clears her throat. "Both. They're twins."

He frowns, looking at the parchment. "Must've meant dependents, plural," he mutters at last, nodding to himself. "Fine." He glares at her. "Let me see your papers, and I'll sign off on them."

She takes a steadying breath. Hermione isn't listed as a dependent on her papers, but she can't do anything about that. She hands the yellowing parchment over to the guard. He doesn't bother to read it, though; he pulls out a quill spelled to keep ink in the tip, writes a date, sloppily signs his name, and thrusts the parchment back at her. "Report to gate entrance three at least ten minutes before six."

She nods, and he stomps out, not bothering to shut the door behind himself.

She looks at the parchment, and she looks at Hermione, who rocks on her heels, anxious. Lily should be nervous, too, because she might've made a terrible mistake including Hermione. But it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't, she tells herself, because the guard said her name was Lily Gail Evans, and that isn't her name.

* * *

They have to hurry to reach gate entrance three before six, and they're shoved onto a train.

Lily feels as though her heart hasn't stopped pounding since the guard knocked on the door, and the nervous energy makes her limbs tremble as she stands pressed between bodies in the train car.

They're let off after a few hours, and her best guess is that they're in Devon.

Sector nine is a bombed out street, and the place smells rancid from the dead bodies that remain littered on the pockmarked street and trapped beneath burnt, twisted cement chunks from destroyed buildings. A mismatched set makes up the work crew; older men, teenage girls, children as young as Harry, middle aged women. The sun glares down on everyone as they clear the debris, and Lily focuses on filling a wheel barrow with bricks, eager to do anything other than pile bodies into a pit that must've been dug earlier in the week. She looks around, too, searching, her heart pounding.

Her back starts to ache after an hour, and Harry can't stop coughing, white as a sheet. They aren't allowed to take any breaks, and the guards aren't about to offer water to him. Lily doesn't know what to do; all that's possible is to continue on, working, sweating, aching, and she curses when she cuts her finger on a sharp, jagged cement piece. She sucks on the cut, and her eyes land on the guard.

He stares at her for an impossibly long moment, and she can't tear her gaze away from him.

Abruptly, he turns on his heel, stalking down the street before he disappears into an alleyway.

She waits a few minutes, trying to stay calm, before she follows him. A quick glance reveals that the alleyway is empty, and she starts to gather broken, battered debris into her arms as an excuse to turn into the alley. She hurries through the narrow strip, emerging into another ruined street. He isn't there.

She circles the quiet, empty street, desperate to find something, _anything_, whatever she is meant to find. As her desperation grows, she starts to search through the rubble, only to glance at the tall, looming building that hides her from the main street, and she spies them in the mud along the wall.

Paw prints.

They're easy to overlook, but her throat closes when she sees them.

She stumbles towards them, moving to her knees, searching the ground, and she moves a large stone piece, crying at what she finds. Her fingers curl into the cloak, silvery to the touch. Oh, God.

She presses her face into the material. It smells like James.

She'd forgotten his smell, and suddenly it's overwhelming her.

But she tries to make herself think. She can't imagine how she would sneak past the guards who surround sector nine with two kids; invisibility isn't enough. What is she expected to do? What do they want her to do? What is the plan? She can hear him in her head, James, murmuring the words.

His voice is exasperated, a little affectionate, a tad indulgent. "Stay put, sweetheart."

Someone shouts in the street, and she panics. She hides the cloak beneath the wreckage, grabs a few blasted, broken bricks, and hurries out from the alley. Someone must've done something to upset the guards, who are gathering in a crowd up the street, shouting and waving their arms about.

This is it.

She finds Hermione, trying to drag a stone as big as she is towards another wheelbarrow, and Lily hurries to her. "Come on," she murmurs, grabbing her hand. "Quickly, darling." Hermione follows obediently, and Lily searches for Harry. There. He is squatting against the wall, coughing wetly.

She beckons him, and his hand is slick with blood when she takes it.

She looks around. No one is paying any attention. The boys must've planned a diversion for her.

She ducks into the alleyway, squirreling the children away from everything. Her hands tremble as she sits them against the wall, telling them that they must try to be very, very quiet for her. She wraps the cloak around her shoulders, and Harry gasps. "Mummy, your head is floating!"

She smiles. "It's an invisibility cloak," she whispers, "and we're going to hide under it."

They're thin, tiny creatures, and they tuck easily into her sides under the cloak. She makes certain that the material folds under their feet, that nobody can spy a single toe.

* * *

A guard sweeps through the alley and into the empty side street. He looks around. He leaves.

* * *

The sun sets, and the cold sweeps over them. But Lily stays put, clutching the children.

It's quiet, dark, icy. Hermione squeezes her hand suddenly, and Lily sees the mangy dog, trotting towards them, whining low in his throat, nervous. He stops, sitting. Lily surges to her feet. The cloak comes with her, revealing the children, who scramble to stand up with her. Hermione hides her against Lily, Harry fists his hands in her jumper, and Lily stares at the mutt.

A moment later, the dog leaps up, transforming into Sirius.

Lily sobs, clapping her hand over her mouth. Sirius grins.

"Uncle Sirius?" Harry asks, hesitant. Sirius looks at him, and Harry stumbles forward. "Uncle Sirius!"

Sirius catches him, laughing as Harry hugs him around the neck. Lily swipes at her tears, and she starts forward, too, Hermione clinging to her hand. "I'm sorry the plan took a while," Sirius murmurs, and Lily shakes her head, taking his face in her hands, smiling. "I've missed you, Gail."

Lily laughs. "What's next? Where is James? Are you a guard? I don't understand."

The slightest hesitance appears in his eyes, stopping her heart for a moment. Sirius sets Harry on his feet. "It's a long story, but we don't want to stick around. Come on." His eyes find Hermione, who presses closer to Lily, hiding. Sirius squats to her height. "Hiya, pretty girl," he greets softly.

Lily looks at Hermione. "This is your uncle Sirius," she says. "Sirius, this is Hermione."

Sirius smiles, and Hermione nods, staying latched to Lily.

"Come on," Sirius says. "Let's get out, and I'll tell you everything."

* * *

He leads them to a Chevy parked along the road leading to sector nine. The drive isn't long, and they leave the car parked illegally in order to disappear into a small Muggle city, where Sirius takes them to a cramped, warm flat. The kitchen is stocked, and Lily warns the children to eat as slowly as they can, or they'll hurt their stomachs. Lily smears butter over bread for them, and they tear into that while Sirius starts the oven to cook bangers for them and Lily heats up mashed potatoes in the microwave. Hermione tries to bite into an orange, but Lily takes the fruit, showing her how to peel it.

She thinks Hermione might swallow a slice whole.

Hermione hands a slice to Harry, and the juice runs down his chin as he eats, as he beams at Lily.

Lily tries to focus on that, rather than on asking where James is. Sirius waits until after they've eaten, until Lily lets the kids crawl into bed. They need to bathe, but they're exhausted, and they deserve to fall asleep with warm, happy bellies.

"Is he —" She means to come right out, to ask, to face it, but the words catch in her throat.

Sirius runs a hand through his hair. "He isn't dead."

Lily breathes out. She hadn't realized she was holding her breath.

"I think they've put him in Azkaban. I mean, that's where they put traitors to be rehabilitated."

She nods, closing her eyes. Sirius reaches across the table to grasp her hand. "We spent months trying to figure out a plan. I used to wonder when he slept, or ate. We figured out that the best way to get you out was to — to be on the inside. But it wasn't as though I could march up to them and say that I wanted to be a guard at the Menial District. I needed to prove that I was loyal to them."

His hand tightens around hers.

"What happened?" she asks, opening her eyes to look at him.

She doesn't feel the urge to cry, hearing about this, hearing about James, rotting in Azkaban.

She feels tired. _Exhausted_, and she doesn't remember how not to be.

He drops his gaze. "I proved my loyalty when I turned over my best friend to Death Eaters." He glances at her. "It was his idea. I didn't want to do it, but he insisted, and I owed him. I mean, I was the guy who dragged him away from his wife in that flat, leaving her to be captured, to be killed."

"I wasn't killed."

"We didn't know that. We were banking on the hope that you were in the district, but. . . ." He shakes his head, and she shifts her hand, intertwining their fingers. "There's more," he says. "Remus is alive."

She gapes at him. "How's that possible? He was captured! They wouldn't have spared him!"

"He wasn't captured," Sirius says, chuckling darkly. "He, um, he left. He thought that he was making things worse for the Order, for us. He left. And when he found me, he was real torn up about it. James forgave him, but I was harder to convince. He helped us get you out, though."

Lily can't believe it. "He left us," she repeats.

Sirius nods. "But, trust me, we can't make him feel worse about it than he's made himself feel."

Lily pulls her hand from his, covering her face. She shakes her head, takes a deep breath, and looks at him. "I don't care. I can't deal with that, I can't. We need to figure out how to save James. And Harry is sick. TB. Tuberculosis. It's a Muggle disease that's killing everyone in the district. A potion exists to cure it. We need to find the recipe. And get the ingredients. As soon as possible."

"Okay, yeah, we can do that," Sirius says, nodding. "But I'll have to get everything; that stuff is regulated. I'll have to be careful that no one figures out what we're up to, or they'll get suspicious."

"But that means you need to head back to sector nine," Lily says. "You're on guard duty. They'll realize that I've disappeared, and they'll blame you when you're not where you're supposed to be."

Sirius rubs his neck. "Actually, about that. I'll report as I'm supposed to, but nobody is going to miss you for a little while. There's something else I need to tell you. I managed to worm my way into guard duty, but I needed help to make sure you were assigned to the work crew. And I needed someone to cross your name off the list when the train took people back to the district." He pauses.

"Who was it? Who else is left?" Nobody. No one else is left; the resistance is dead.

"Think about it," he says. "Who is a Death Eater that would want to help you?"

She shakes her head, exasperated with him. "There isn't a bloody soul under You-Know-Who who would want to help a Mudblood." She steals a sip from his beer. She can't remember the last time she drank beer.

"I didn't say a Death Eater who wanted to help a Mudblood," he replies. "I said a Death Eater who wanted to help _you_, Lily."

She stares at him. And she remembers telling _him_ that he couldn't make that distinction. "No," she says.

"He came to me," Sirius says, smiling grimly. "I hate his guts, but Severus Snape saved your life."

* * *

He tells her everything. Snape kept an eye on her after he spotted her in the district.

He saved her when the foreman lost his head at the factory; it was Snape who carried Lily out, bandaging her wounds as best he could, and took her to her flat. Sirius asks about her time in the district, and Lily explains everything in as few words as possible. She has more questions for him.

He doesn't know where Peter is. His face darkens when he says it.

He lights a cigarette, closing his eyes as he takes a drag, only to hesitate when he opens his eyes to look at her. She stops him from stubbing the ciggy out, though, and he smiles sadly when she takes a drag herself.

"I have a couple things for you," he says. He hands them to her. A tattered, frayed jumper that belonged to James; she used to complain about how ragged the jumper looked, but James loved the thing. She runs her fingers over the soft, unwashed material, her nail catching on a small hole. Sirius gives her James's wand, too, which they hid before Sirius took James to the Ministry of Magic. "I figured you could use it," Sirius says.

Lily doesn't know what happened to her wand, and she nods. The wood is pliant under her touch. She hasn't held one in years, but her hand curls naturally around the long, thin wand. It's as familiar to her as her own. James used to refer to his wand as a she, and Lily would roll her eyes at him.

"There's this, too," Sirius says, holding out a photograph, curled slightly around one edge yet carefully preserved. It's James, playing with Harry, making him giggle. Lily remembers taking it.

"Thank you," she whispers.

* * *

She can't fall asleep.

Sirius heads out, promising to return tomorrow with the recipe, the tools, and the ingredients to save Harry, and Lily starts a bath. She stands under the scalding spray until she can't feel it, and she uses half the shampoo bottle. She expected to have to use whatever Sirius had for himself, but she finds citrus scented stuff, a conditioner bottle, too, and soap that smells like lavender. It's her favorite.

She wonders whether Sirius bought everything, or James planned that far in advance.

Afterward, she looks at herself in the mirror. Her ribs peek out, her breasts are small, shrunken, and her skin is a dry patchwork canvas, scars splashed across it. She dresses in the clothes that Sirius told her were in the trunk beside the bed; a nightgown that's never been worn is waiting for her, and the thing dwarfs her, slipping continually off her bony shoulders. She throws out the clothes she wore.

And she crawls into bed between the children, but sleep eludes her.

Harry wakes up in a coughing fit, and she rubs his back. "Where's Dad?" he mumbles.

"Dada is locked up like we were," Lily whispers, stroking his hair. "But we'll get him out."

She leaves him a few minutes later to make breakfast. Her stomach hurts from last night, yet smelling bacon on the skillet makes her mouth water. The children stumble from the bed at the smell, and she lets them have a single slice along with another orange each and a little bread.

She gives them baths, scrubbing them until their skin shines pink. She has to drain the water twice; it doesn't do any good to wash their hair with grey, dirty water. In the last round, she spills the shampoo, creating a bubble bath, and they're delighted. When she reaches for towels, Harry sends a soapy wave at Hermione, who laughs, kicking up a storm, and Lily leaves them to make a mess. To be children.

Afterward, dressed in fresh, baggy clothes, they practice writing with a quill and an ink pot.

Sirius returns at three in the afternoon. He isn't alone.

Dumbledore is with him, and Severus follows behind Dumbledore.

Sirius entertains Harry and Hermione while Dumbledore explains his efforts to rebuild the Order. "Where were you?" Lily asks, interrupting him. "I thought you left us to find a way to defeat Voldemort. Did you?" She doesn't mean to snap at him, but she can't help how bitter she feels, and Severus won't stop staring at her. He hasn't said a word yet, and she hasn't tried to talk to him.

"I'm afraid I didn't discover everything I wanted to find," he says. "But I have something very important to tell you. It is something that I do not think you want to hear, but you must." He pauses, waiting, but she doesn't say anything. "A few years ago, I heard a prophesy about Voldemort, which I kept secret. I was uncertain how Voldemort would act upon learning it. After I learned that the Order was attacked, however, I returned, and I told James about the prophesy, which he shared with Sirius. A few months ago, I told Severus. No one else is aware, however." Again, he pauses. "Lily, the prophecy concerns someone with the power to defeat Voldemort."

She doesn't like how long he is taking to come out with it. "What is it?" she asks.

He tell hers. A boy, born as the seventh month dies, parents who defied Voldemort three times, marked as his equal, and neither can live while the other survives. He doesn't need to explain who he believes the boy to be, and she shakes her head at him. "I'm sorry, Lily," he murmurs. "There is the possibility that your son is not, in fact, the child in the prophecy, but I believe that —"

"What do you expect me to do?" she cuts in. "Do you want me to send my son to him?"

"I don't know what is to happen, Lily, but I know that we must prepare ourselves for it."

She scoffs. "No, I'll tell you what is going to happen," she say, standing. "I'm going to make a potion to cure my son. I'm going to find a way to rescue my husband from Azkaban. And I'm going to leave England with them. I'm going to take my family, and I'm going to get as far from this place as I can. I don't care whether I'm a coward for it, but I'm finished. I'm finished trying to fight a losing battle, and I can't care about whatever cryptic plan you've devised."

The room is silent.

"Lily," Severus murmurs. She glares at him as he reaches into his robes. "I thought you might need it." He holds out a small vial filled with a creamy blue potion. "It will cure your son," he explains.

She takes the vial. "Thank you," she breathes. She can't meet his eyes, and she calls for Harry.

He sits on her lap as he drinks the potion, shuddering when the last drop disappears into his mouth. A moment later, he rubs his chest. "It's like my stomach is on fire." He makes a face, but Lily glances at Severus, and he nods; that's what's supposed to happen. She kisses Harry on the forehead.

Sirius stands, swinging Hermione up into his arms. "Who wants something to eat?"

* * *

Dumbledore leaves after dinner, smiling sadly at Lily. Sirius needs to report to sector nine for guard duty; he blows Lily a kiss as he leaves. Severus stays. He sit at the kitchen table, watching Lily put her children to bed. "Aren't you going to sleep with us, Mummy?" Hermione asks her.

"I'll come to bed in a little while," Lily promises, smiling at her.

It's quiet in the kitchen after that.

Lily washes the dishes.

"I didn't know you had a daughter," Severus murmurs.

She nods. "Sirius told me that you sought him out to help me," she says. "He told me you saved my life. He — he told me everything. Thank you." She doesn't feel as though she is truly saying these words; this doesn't seem real, standing in this kitchen, washing these dishes, talking quietly with Severus Snape.

He looks as though he might say something, but he remains quiet until he leaves at last.

"Goodnight," he mumbles, and he sweeps from the flat before she can respond.

* * *

Again, she doesn't really sleep for more than a few hours.

Sirius hasn't questioned why Hermione is with them; he didn't say a word when he realized that Lily refers to Hermione as her daughter. Lily loves him for that, and she hates him, too, because she knows that James wouldn't have said a word, either. He would've asked Hermione whether she wanted to read a book with Dada, would've called her silly nicknames, would've acted as though she had always been his, and Lily would've smiled to herself, brushing a hand over his untidy hair.

She cries at last, biting her fist to stay silent, trembling in the bed.

* * *

Severus starts to come around to the flat. He brings food, ingredients for a potion that will help the scar on her face fade, telling her that he plans to look into a potion to restore her tooth. She nods, trying to catch his eye, but he avoids her gaze with concerted effort. They haven't really talked.

Dumbledore trusts him, mentioning more than once that Snape has turned, is a spy for them.

He says an underground resistance remains, fighting in the shadows, and Snape is invaluable.

A week after he helped Sirius rescue her, Severus comes to the flat with Dumbledore, only to linger after the older man leaves, and Lily asks. "Why have you turned?" She stares at him. "After everything, why would you turn?" He is powerful. Respected. This is what he wanted, isn't it?

It's as though he can read her thoughts. "I never wanted anything to happen to you." He meets her gaze, and it's quiet. "May I ask a question?" Despite herself, she smiles at the formality, the polite tone he uses. She nods. "Why is the name Gail significant? Sirius calls you that, and he said you would know that he was behind a plan to rescue you when you heard a report refer to you as that."

"It isn't a very interesting story," she admits. "My middle name is Abigail. But you know that, right?" His nod is curt, and she continues quickly. "Well, Sirius started referring to me as Gail after I got together with James. I'm not sure why. He wanted to get my goat, I suppose. I've never liked my middle name, and Gail isn't my favorite nickname for it. It was silly, but it stuck. That's it."

"I see," Severus says.

She is about to ask whether he wants anything to eat when he moves suddenly to his feet. "I need to apologize," he says, startling her. "I wanted to do something for you sooner, but I was not able."

"It — it's fine." She smiles, hesitating, and — "I'm happy to have my friend back."

His hands shake as he heads for the door.

* * *

Sirius brings another straggler to the flat. Remus.

He looks as though he aged twenty years since she last saw him; his hair is unwashed, sweeping his shoulders, different from the neat, clean cut he used to sport. His face features new scars, broader, deeper scars, and his nose is twisted strangely. His eyes are as worn as his clothes, and he manages a tired smile for Lily when he sees her. He looks old to her, but she must look old to him.

"I hate you for leaving," she says.

"I do, too," he replies, "more than you can possibly imagine." His voice is hoarse, and he can't meet her gaze.

But she can imagine a lot; she pinned him as a martyr in their fifth year at Hogwarts, when they first started to spend time together, a tortured, miserable martyr. Harry doesn't remember him, which Lily can see pains Remus. After the children are put to bed, Sirius starts to talk about how they can help James escape. Every plan sounds absurd, but breaking into Azkaban won't be easy.

"We'll do it," Remus says, a grim determination etched into his face.

Before he leaves for the night, Lily touches his shoulder. She pulls him into a hug.

She doesn't have the energy for holding a grudge.

* * *

Harry reaches for a crayon from the box that Sirius bought, and Lily watches his hand land to the side. He frowns, squinting, his hand sliding across the table, trying to grab the crayon. Lily says something to Sirius, and, to her surprise, he quickly produces round spectacles that she recognizes.

"He kept two pairs, remember," Sirius says. He clears his throat. "I can spell these for Harry."

It doesn't take more than half an hour to change the lens for Harry, who is delighted with the glasses, exclaiming at everything that he sees. "Mummy!" he exclaims. "There are flowers on the wallpaper!" He looks thrilled with himself, and she can see Hermione bursting with the need to point out that she knew _already_ that there were flowers on the wallpaper. Lily smiles indulgently, kissing Harry on the head and winking at Hermione.

Harry looks disconcertingly like James.

It's not as though this is new; he takes after James, and she knew he would the moment he was born with dark hair. But looking at him with round glasses framing his long, pale face, his untidy black hair standing on end as he grins broadly at her, she can't see anything but his father.

Severus comes to the flat with Dumbledore, and he stares at Harry with an expressionless face.

Dumbledore spends the evening trying to convince Lily to meet with the resistance group that formed a few months ago. She isn't interested, and her responses become shorter and shorter as the night wears on, her patience running out. She pushes her chair back abruptly when he mentions that they have contacts across Europe who are ready to help in the fight against Voldemort. "I need to put the kids to bed," she tells him. "I think you can see yourself out, yeah?" She leaves the room.

When she returns, Dumbledore has left, but Severus remains at the table.

She recognizes the ingredients he set out before him; he is working on the Polyjuice Potion for Sirius, who thinks that he can take out a Death Eater with clearance to go into Azkaban, steal a few hairs, and sneak into the prison under an alias. He hasn't yet figured out how he'll get James out.

"Do you need any help?" Lily offers. Severus shakes his head.

She is about to go to bed, leaving him to have the kitchen to himself, only for Harry to stumble from the bedroom, yawning. "I'm not sleepy," he declares, pulling himself into a chair at the table.

"Do you want something to eat?" Lily asks knowingly, and Harry nods.

His glasses are on, and she can see red imprints on his nose; he needs to take the spectacles off in bed, but he loves them too much to have them away from him for a single minute, awake or asleep.

Having gained weight quickly, a little belly protrudes from his thin frame, and she musses his hair before she pulls out the bread to make a peanut butter sandwich for him. "Mr. Snape," he says, kicking his legs under the chair, "are you doing magic?" His eyes are wide as he watches Severus.

Severus stares at him. "I am," he says.

Harry pulls his legs onto the chair and pushes himself up, leaning across the table on his elbows. "Do you need any help?" he asks, something shy in his voice. Lily pauses, turned away from them.

"I need to add that powder beside you," Severus says. It's quiet. "I suppose you may add it."

Lily smiles.

A moment later, as she fishes out the peanut butter jar from the pantry, Severus continues. "Stir slowly," he says. "Remember to count every stroke. That's two, and we need another sixteen."

She turns around to see them with their heads bent over the cauldron. Their dark hair matches.

* * *

Severus spends the night, sleeping on the sofa. The next morning, Hermione wants to help brew a magical potion like Harry, and she looks at Severus with big, sad eyes. Severus starts a potion for repairing damaged hair, and Hermione leans against him, asking question after question, growing bolder with every answer.

Lily smiles, only to see the scowl that Sirius wears as he watches them.

* * *

They're living in limbo, trapped in this flat. Lily hasn't been outside in two weeks.

She didn't have very much time in the district to dwell on anything. She slept at night, worked during the day, and filled every moment in between with worry over how to keep the children fed, how to protect them, how to keep them alive. Focusing on them day after day distracted her.

But she paces the flat where they're fed, warm, and safe, and she feels groundless, lost.

* * *

Sirius wants Remus to help him break James out from Azkaban.

The plan is to use the Polyjuice Potion to sneak into Azkaban as Death Eaters, and they'll tell the guards that they're supposed to take James to the Ministry, where his wife waits for him; they've invented an entire story about threatening to kill his wife unless he swears allegiance to Voldemort.

It sounds elaborate enough to work. All that's left is to wait for the potion to brew.

Lily tells Sirius that she wants to come. She wants to help.

Sirius shakes his head. "I love you, Gaily, but James put himself in that prison to save you from yours, and — and I'll get him out. I swear I'll do it. I'll bring him back to you." He takes her hands.

She hugs him, and he rocks her off her feet like he used to do, kissing her temple.

* * *

She isn't really awake when she hears voices in the kitchen.

"— dead. I know that's what you're hoping. But he isn't." It's Sirius, and his tone is nasty, cruel.

Lily rubs her eyes, turning in bed to face the door, which someone left open very slightly, allowing a thin, yellow line to peek through. Someone else says something. It's Severus, she realizes sleepily.

She should get up. See what they're on about.

Sirius growls low in his throat. He does that when something really riles him; it's the mutt in him.

"It doesn't matter," he says. "She'll never love you as much as she loves him."

Lily frowns, and this time she hears what Severus says. "I don't care," he replies, voice short.

Hermione shifts against her. A door slams. It's quiet. And Lily drifts off. The next morning she mentions to Sirius that she thinks she had an unpleasant dream, but she can't remember about what.

The potion matures three days later. Sirius leaves with Remus, telling Harry to look after the girls.

* * *

They don't return.

* * *

Lily goes through the motions. She leaves bed in the morning, makes breakfast, and reads with the children to pass the morning. There's lunch, there's dinner, there's singing along to the record player with the children. But the boys left three days ago. Where are they?

Dead, she thinks. Captured, tortured, imprisoned.

She doesn't cry; the urge never overtakes her. James is dead, too, she realizes. Her heart twists, but she can't do anything about the truth, living holed up inside this flat, living, living, living while everyone else dies. The exhaustion weighs on her shoulders until she thinks she'll buckle under it.

* * *

"I can get you out," Severus tells her.

He has started to come around for dinner every night, and Lily appreciates the company. He doesn't demand anything from her the way that Dumbledore can't help but do, and he is strangely sweet with the children, practicing potions with them, accepting the drawings they offer him, answering their endless questions about everything. Everything she knows in the world is lost, is wrong, but for the first time in years Severus Snape is her friend, and she clings to the comfort that offers her.

"What do you mean?" Lily asks.

Severus drags his fork across his plate. "There are people who, for a price, provide transportation from the country," he explains. "I know how to contact them. I can get you out. I have the money."

She stares at him, and her words are automatic. "I can't leave."

"I thought that's what you wanted," he says, frowning.

"It is, but —" She shakes her head. "I can't leave my family."

His frown deepens. "Do you mean your sister? If she hasn't left yet, Lily, she isn't alive." He dismisses the fact easily, but she isn't bothered, not really; she hasn't though about Petunia in years.

"No, Sev, I mean — my family. My boys. Sirius and Remus and — _James_."

"They're dead," Severus says, and the coldness in his voice is replaced with a stiffness, as though he is exerting every effort not to sound cold on the matter, yet he can't manage anything truly better.

"No," Lily argues, mouth dry. "I don't believe that. Can't. I can't believe that."

He stares at her. "What about your children? What's left for them? This flat? This life?"

She rubs her temples, taking a deep breath. "I know. I know that you're right. I know that I should get out for their sake. I _know_. This isn't a life, and who knows how long we'll be safe. It's one thing to risk my own life, but I should think about my kids. Except — I can't imagine leaving when the smallest possibility exists that the boys aren't dead. That James —" She stares imploringly at him, but he moves abruptly to his feet. "Sev, please, try to understand." She grasps his hand. "Severus."

His fingers curl suddenly around hers, and his gaze meets hers with an overwhelming intensity.

"Lily."

She opens her mouth, but he doesn't let her say a word.

"I'll come with you," he breathes. "There is nothing you can do for James, and he can do nothing for you. But I can get you out, Lily, and I can get your children out, and I'll stay with you." The desperation in his voice cuts into her, leaving her stunned, amazed, speechless, only able to gape at him. He steps closer to her. "We can escape together, Lily. I'll atone for the mistakes I've made."

She starts to shake her head, but he surges forward, covering her mouth with his.

It's a fast, hard kiss, and she remains paralyzed against him as his hands move to grip her arms, his palms cupping her elbows. His lips are unpracticed against hers, needy, desperate. Her eyes close, and she finds herself responding. He softens in response, mouth moving sweetly against hers. When the kiss ends, he presses his forehead to hers, breathing her name. And she opens her eyes. He isn't James.

His hand brushes against the scar on her cheek.

"Severus," she whispers, and he must see it. She can't look, though, can't hold his gaze. She steps away from him, swiping at her eyes. "It's no use, Sev." He lets her go, lets her slip from his grasp.

His hands are fisted. She forces herself to look into his face, and she can see the frustration.

But look at me, she thinks. Look at the jumper I'm wearing; look at the wand sticking out from my left pocket, at the picture tucked into my right pocket. Look at the finger where his ring sat before they stole it. She can see it, where his ring is supposed to be. And look at my freckles; he kissed every single one. Can't you see? Can't you see the curls that he tugged, the skin that felt his smile?

"Why?" he asks. He swallows thickly. "What is it about him? Why did you marry him?"

"Severus," she murmurs. She feels like they're back at school, but that was a lifetime ago, and she doesn't really remember that life before the war, before she found Hermione, before Harry existed.

"Do you want me to understand?" Severus asks. "Tell me. Explain. Why do you love him?" It's a demand, but the cold tone in his voice isn't enough to cover the desperation in his gaze as he asks.

"Because," she whispers, tears catching in her throat. "Because. He makes me smile."

Makes. Not made. Makes.

Severus stares at her. "He makes you smile," he repeats.

"That's right," she murmurs. "There's a thousand other reasons, but, in the end, yes, that's it. That's enough." She smiles sadly at him. "Sev, for a long time you were my best friend in the whole world. But you broke my heart until I couldn't stand it. I cried over you more times than I can count. I was miserable thinking about you, Sev. Missing you. Loving you. So I stopped. I started to spend my time with someone who made me smile. And one day, I woke up, and I was in love with him."

He takes a hesitant step towards her. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "Lily, you have no idea how sorry I am. I would do anything to take back what I did. Who I became. _What_ I became." His voice is laced with his despair. "If I could take it back, I would. I swear, I would. Just let me prove it. Prove that — that there is nothing I want more in this world than to make you smile. _Please_, Lily."

"Sev," she murmurs, blinking away the tears that burn in her eyes. "I wish that I — it's too late, Severus. I'm sorry. I gave my heart to somebody else, and he hasn't given it back. I don't — I don't want it back. I just want him back. I don't care about anything else anymore. I just want him back." Her chest is tight, her throat closing as she says the words, and she doesn't care about anything all. All she wants is her husband back.

"I thought I was too tired to care," she says, swallowing thickly, shaking her head, "but I'm not."

It's quiet, and the moment seems endless, there in that cramped flat, his eyes boring into hers.

He breaks his gaze abruptly, and she doesn't try to stop him as he stalks from the flat.

* * *

She stares at the door that he slams behind him.

She closes her eyes, breathing in. She presses her hands to her face, letting out a choked, silent sob. But she curls her hands into fists, letting them drop from her face. She takes a deep breath in. She opens her eyes, breathing out. Severus is right. She can't do anything for her boys, and she shouldn't foolishly put stock in what she wants, in what she wishes, in what she hopes. She needs to focus on reality, on keeping her children alive, on surviving for them, because they're what's left, they're what keeps the ground from truly crumbling beneath her. They need her.

She can't keep living in limbo. She can't.

She'll get them out. She'll talk to Severus. She'll take his help to get them out.

* * *

But Severus doesn't come for dinner the following night. Dumbledore comes, and Lily tells him that she wants to help with the resistance. Startled, he smiles. "There's one thing, though," she says. "I don't care about the prophecy. I don't want my son involved. I won't risk his life. I won't."

Dumbledore hesitates, but he nods. "I understand."

"They're not safe in England. My kids. I need to get them out. Can you help me do that?"

"I can, but I must ask. Do you intend to send them on without you?"

Lily fingers the wand in her pocket. "They can't stay. But I — I can't leave."

Dumbledore doesn't ask for an explanation.

* * *

She starts to write.

She puts down everything she can think. She describes her days in school, and she tells as many tales as she can about the Marauders. She writes about how she detested James, but they were stupid, immature kids, and, suddenly, they weren't, and she found herself falling in love with him.

She writes what she told Severus. She writes about her parents, about his, about Sirius, about his family. She writes about the wedding. She writes about the war. She leaves out the unpleasant moments, because this is her history to write, and she doesn't need them to remember the worst moments. She writes and writes, and Hermione wants to write a book, too, Mummy, and Lily finds her a little paper. Hermione sets about writing her book, and Lily writes a lot about Hermione, too.

Severus doesn't return. After a week, a familiar resignation coating her tongue, she stops expecting that he might. It's Dumbledore who comes to the flat daily, bringing food for them, because Lily hasn't stepped foot outside since Sirius rescued them. She will. As soon as her children are safe, she will.

* * *

Dumbledore finds spots for them on a transport that'll take them to Norway. It works perfectly, really, because Alice Longbottom wanted a spot on the transport, too. She dyed her hair, snapped her wand, and started to live among Muggles in Exeter two years ago, abandoning the resistance to keep her son safe. But she wants out, and she agreed to help Lily. She agreed to look after Harry.

"And your girl, too," her note reads. "I'll love them like my own."

Lily finishes writing her book, and she tucks the photograph into the pages.

She doesn't have a picture of herself to include. She hopes they'll remember what she looks like.

* * *

She leaves bed early, staring out the window as the sun rises, dying the sky a dusty, dull pink. She hasn't figured out how she'll say goodbye to them. How do you part with your children? How do you make them understand that your goodbye is for good? They'll come to hate her for doing this, she thinks, for fighting to the death when she could've stayed with them, escaped with them, lived.

She wonders where they'll end up. She wonders how they'll turn out.

She wonders, and she hears laughter from the bedroom, a soft, sweet giggle.

They'll have each other, she reminds herself, a little family to count on. She leans against the window frame, and the door unlocks. She hears the click, drawing her gaze in time for her to watch the doorknob turn. For the briefest moment, she doesn't understand. Who wouldn't knock? And, for an even briefer moment, she imagines that Sirius is about to walk through the door with James.

But the door swings open, and the breath leaves Lily in a rush.

She can't move. She can't reach into her skirt for the wand; she can't try to hide the kids. His eyes find her as soon as he sweeps into the room. An unnatural smile spreads smoothly across his face.

"I see you've managed to survive," Voldemort says.

He stands in the doorway, alone, speaking calmly, a nightmare brought to life, because this is what nightmares are, the most powerful dark wizard standing in your doorway, smiling thinly at you. He isn't a stranger to her; three times she met him on a battlefield, adrenaline pumping through her veins, everything happening quickly, a hundred brilliant colors splashing across the sky from a hundred different spells as every breath from her lungs burned with bravery. But this isn't like that.

This is a nightmare, and Voldemort stares at her, a slick smile on his white, distorted face.

The panic paralyzes her, but she needs to think.

"I suppose you've come to kill me," she says, gripping the window ledge to steady herself. "I'm flattered at your effort." He must've found out that someone from the resistance was alive. But he might not know that her children are in the bedroom. She needs to make sure he doesn't find out.

"No," he says, "I'm afraid I have no interest in you." He steps further into the room, and his gaze flickers around the sparse living area, looking over the battered furniture, landing on the crayons that litter the table. Abruptly, his eyes return to her, and he takes another step towards her. "Or am I to believe that Albus Dumbledore failed to tell you about the prophecy that concerns your child?"

She chokes on the emptiness in her lungs. And Voldemort is pleased.

He sees the panic rise into her eyes, surely. He feels the terror roll off her in waves.

"I see you are familiar with it," he says, satisfied. "Where is he?" He twists his wrist with a lazy grace, and the door to the toilet snaps open. "Where is the child? I do not care about your life, Lily." He says her name with a familiarity that makes her stomach clench. The closet door bursts open. "I am not concerned with you. In fact, I shall be kind to you. I shall suffer you to live."

His eyes never leave hers as his wrist starts to flick, slowly, because he knows, because —

Her words come out in a whisper. "Please," she begs, "please, he is a child. A _baby_. He isn't a threat to anyone. He isn't." Tears spring into her eyes, but Voldemort doesn't blink. "Please, don't."

"No, he isn't any threat to me," Voldemort replies, "and I shall not let him _become_ a threat. Where is he?" His wrist twists, and the door blows open. No one emerges from it. They must've heard the voices, must've realized something wasn't right. But they can't hide. "Harry, isn't it?" Voldemort says. Lily swallows a sob. "Harry. Mummy needs you, Harry. Come out, child." Slowly, he flicks his wrist.

There's a thump from within the room, and a strangled yelp.

And, as though dragged out by invisible hand, Harry appears in the doorway, struggling.

Lily reaches for her wand.

She isn't quick enough. Her fingertips brush the handle, and a spell hits her squatly in the chest, sending terrible, terrible pain spreading over her like an itch, a needling pain that seeps underneath her skin as she falls to the ground, convulsing. "I do not appreciate your interference," he hisses.

"Mummy!" Harry screams, trying to get to her.

The pain stops abruptly, but Lily panics. "No, Harry!" she cries, helpless as the invisible hand tears him backwards, slamming him into the wall. Her arm is twisted under her, but she can feel the wand. She needs an instant to pull it out, that's it. But it's too silent, too still to allow her an instant.

The flat echos with terror while Harry trembles, suspended against the wall, as Voldemort seems to assess him, only to look abruptly at something else. Hermione. "I wasn't aware there was a girl," he murmurs. "She is inconsequential." A single, silent spell, and Hermione crumples to the ground.

But it wasn't the killing curse, and it's enough.

Lily whips out the wand before Voldemort spins around, deflecting his attack.

She scrambles to her feet, firing spell after spell at him, trying to disarm him, to Stun him, to flip him, trying every spell she can recall. The wand vibrates in her hand, as though James is trying to help her, and she tries the silly spells that James liked; she tries to light his robes on fire, tries to make his limbs swell, tries to ties his legs in a knot. But every spell she remembers isn't enough.

She takes a breath, Voldemort sends her flying like a rag doll; the wand spins from her grasp.

Harry shouts for her, but "Run, Harry!" she cries. "Run!" His arms are around an unconscious Hermione, trying to drag her to safety with him, and Voldemort isn't concerned that he'll escape as he looks at Lily, narrows his red eyes at her; his face distorts with an unmatched, unadulterated hatred.

All she can think about is Harry, Harry, Harry.

The world seems to slow, and she watches his mouth open to say the spell, to kill her.

But another voices cries out. "No!" It's Severus, scrambling into the flat, falling to his knees as Voldemort turns slowly to look at him. "No, my lord," he gasps, "I beg you, please, I beg you —"

"I believe I told you to wait until I was ready to deal with you," Voldemort says.

Severus shakes his head. "The prophecy isn't what you believe, my lord!"

Her wand is across the room. She can't reach it.

Harry presses against the wall, clutching Hermione, and —

"My lord," Severus pleads, "_please_."

"Do not insult my intelligence, Severus," Voldemort says icily, "I saw the prophecy _in your head_. I saw your betrayal, and I spared your life." He steps towards Severus. "I have given you power, Severus, yet you betray me. You _defy_ me. You insult me!" He spins suddenly, his wand cutting through the air, and Lily follows like a puppet on a string, soaring across the flat to land against the wall with a thud that echoes through her as her ankle snaps under her. "Fine," Voldemort breathes. "Have it."

It. Her. Lily. What Severus wants.

Severus looks at Lily. Her heard thuds, and her vision swims, and the pain in her ankle burns, but her heart hasn't changed. Harry, Harry, Harry. She stares at Severus, and she knows he can see it.

"Come, boy," Voldemort snarls, looking at Harry.

Lily can't see him any longer, and she can't move, is paralyzed, yet the hopelessness that started to plague her years ago is gone. She imagines every possible hope, dream, wish in that moment. James will rush into the room, coming to their rescue, saving them; this is a nightmare, and she will wake up any moment to a life that is something beautiful, something brilliant, something better.

Severus surges up from his knees, lunging forward, hiding Harry behind himself.

He stands before Voldemort. "He is a child. He is nothing to you, I swear."

"Do not try my patience, Severus," Voldemort hisses. "_Move_, you fool."

"Please, my lord," Severus begs.

A second passes, and everything happens. Voldemort raises his wand. Severus backs towards the bedroom doorway, his arms spreading, as though he wants to protect Harry. Voldemort says the words. Severus glances at Lily, and she can see the mantra that beats with his heart. Lily, Lily, Lily.

The green that flashes through the air is quick, harsh, sudden, and Severus falls.

Voldemort doesn't wait. Another second, and he repeats the words. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

Lily screams, struggling to find her feet, but she can't stop the spell.

All she can see is green, and the flat explodes.

* * *

She blacks out as the blast slams her into the wall. The fire alarm is going off. She blinks, looking around. Everything is in tatters, ceiling plaster ground to powder raining quietly to the floor. She blinks, struggling to rise to her feet. Her ears ring, and she sees Severus. His body is motionless.

"No," she breathes. Oh, God. She uses the wall to pull herself up. "Harry! Hermione!"

She doesn't understand what happened, but she doesn't see Voldemort, and —

"Mummy," Hermione murmurs. "Mum — HARRY! Harry, wake up!"

Lily sees them in the bedroom doorway, Hermione shaking Harry, sprawled at an odd angle on the ground, blood smeared across his forehead. Lily trips in her haste to reach them, collapsing on the ground. She touches his arm, his cheek, his chest, and her fingers press into his neck, feeling for it.

She can't breath, crying, desperate. There. A pulse. She nearly chokes on her relief.

She uses her sleeve to mop up a little blood on his cheek, only to find a nasty cut splitting his forehead; the force from whatever cut him must've knocked him unconscious. She shakes him gently, and his eyes flicker. Lily takes his hand, kissing his knuckles.

Hermione leans into her. "What happened?" she whispers.

Lily shakes her head, wrapping an arm around the girl. "I don't know."

* * *

When Dumbledore arrives, Lily is ready for him.

Harry sits at the kitchen table with Hermione, and they're sipping tea. Lily cleaned his cut and wrapped a bandage around his head. She took a sheet from off the bed to wrap up Severus. She closed his eyes, kissed his forehead, and wiped her tears off his cheek. He loved her to his last.

"I saw the smoke from the street," Dumbledore breathes.

Lily can't remember the last time she saw his wizened face slack with surprise.

"Voldemort is dead," Lily says. "His body was destroyed, but I'm certain. He is dead."

She feels like laughing, or screaming, or sleeping. She feels everything. Or she feels nothing.

"What happened?" Dumbledore asks.

Lily meets his gaze. "I killed him," she says. Some things are better left secret.

* * *

Everything that Voldemort built crumbles quickly without him.

* * *

The boys forgot to buy shoes for Lily before they rescued her.

She laughs when she realizes, clutching her hand to her mouth, and the children giggle, because they don't understand, and she can't explain it; she doesn't understand any better than they. She thinks she might've lost her mind. It doesn't matter. She needs to focus. The world is euphoric, but Lily isn't interested in a celebration. Dumbledore brings Alice to the flat. Neville is a chubby boy, hiding shyly behind her.

Lily looks at Alice, and she sees herself in dull blue eyes and a thin, tired face.

She can trust Alice to look after her children.

As they play with Neville, she pulls on the wellies she bought in the district. The worn soles are strangely familiar under her worn feet. She finds a coat that belonged to Sirius to wear over the jumper that belonged to James, and the cold air is biting and brisk and lovely in her lungs.

It takes several Muggle buses, a cab ride, and two hours waiting for a spot on a crowded boat, but she reaches Azkaban. The island is crowded with people vying for their loved ones to be released. The squat, fat man who someone put in charge insists over and over, however, that no one is being released from the prison until the provisional government can sort out who is guilty and who isn't.

"No, I will NOT calm down!" a woman shouts, crowding the man. "I HAVE SEVEN CHILDREN AT HOME WHO NEED THEIR FATHER, AND I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!"

Lily thinks randomly about strawberry ice cream, because Fabian Prewett loved it.

Nobody in that prison is guilty, Lily thinks. James isn't guilty. Arthur Weasley isn't guilty.

A moment later, Lily sees a thin, pale woman with a disgusted, disgruntled gleam in her eyes, her lips pursed with displeasure. Lily can't remember her name, but she knows that the woman is a Death Eater, and she is married to a Death Eater. She can't be at Azkaban to free an innocent soul.

It doesn't matter. Lily doesn't care about anyone else.

She spots another government official.

He sees her coming, and he holds up his hand, a harried gleam in his eye. "Tell me your name," he says, "tell me whom you would like to see released, and I'll add your loved one to the list."

"My name is Lily Potter," she says, "and I would like to see James Potter, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin released."

A hush spreads over the island the moment she says her name, spreading from Lily like a wave that washes over everyone. As quickly as the quiet comes, the whispers start up in the next moment, awed voices murmuring about Lily Potter, the woman who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the woman who saved the world.

The official gapes at her, but she doesn't lower her gaze, waiting, and he starts to nod.

"Yes, of course, Mrs. P-Potter," he stutters, "I'll see where your husband is being kept, and I'll have him released. And the others that you said. But I'll need you to repeat their names, please —"

She curls her hand tightly into a fist. "Sirius Black," she repeats, "and Remus Lupin." Her gaze lands on Molly Weasley, her cheeks hollowed, purple smudges beneath her eyes, and Lily adds another name before she thinks about it. "And Arthur Weasley. They're innocent, I assure you."

The man hurries off, waving at another man to assist him, and Lily pretends not to notice the pointing and the stares. She doesn't have any idea whether James is in the prison, whether Sirius is, whether Remus is. But they might be alive, and they might be waiting for her. She'll find them.

* * *

It isn't very long before people flock around her.

Some want to thank her, to tell her with tears in their eyes how grateful they are. Some want to shake her hand, are honored to meet her. Some want to ask for her help, to tell her that a husband or a sister or a nephew is in Azkaban. She nods, tries to smile, overwhelmed, her nails biting into her palm. Her heart leaps into her throat when the official returns, making a beeline straight for her.

"This way, ma'am," he says.

He talks as they walk. Remus Lupin isn't being held at the prison. They don't know where he is. Arthur Weasley is being debriefed, because he worked for the government under Voldemort for a few months, but they'll have him released as soon as his debrief is finished. They have Sirius, too.

But they can't release him. "He is a Death Eater, Mrs. Potter. I'm sorry, but he'll need to go on trial with the others." Before she can say anything, he continues hastily, "I trust your word that he is innocent, of course, but we're having enough trouble sorting out everything, and I'm sure his innocence will come to light in the trial. I apologize, Mrs. Potter. And I would be happy to —"

"What about my husband?" she asks. Sirius is alive. They'll get him out. What about James?

The man smiles. "We're having him brought out as I speak."

* * *

The air feels dank on her skin, pressing in on her, and she breathes through her mouth to avoid the smell. She asks the official — "Albert Williams, Mrs. Potter, but, please, it's Bertie" — and he tells her that the Dementors are being kept at the Ministry, because Albus Dumbledore insisted upon it.

He leads her up narrow stairs, and the smell soaks into her skin, coating every breath she takes.

But when they reach the fourth landing, he nods at a tall, burly guard with thick blonde hair and bright pink cheeks. His robes are dark, swirling around his legs as he uses magic to open the thick, creaking door where he is stationed, and Lily can't help but remember the guards in the district.

She doesn't look this guard in the eye.

The room mustn't be where they keep prisoners; it's large, with long, thin windows on the far wall, and a fat, wooden table in the center, set between a plush, aging chair and a wooden chair with chains hooked to the arms. The chains aren't in use, though, despite the prisoner seated at the table.

James.

He is hidden under hair that brushes his shoulders, a splotchy beard, and dry, sallow skin, and he looks thinner than she is, but he is James, and he stares straight at her. His glasses are sliding off his nose; the lens over his left eye is cracked, and the lens over his right eye is missing entirely. They're as broken as he is. He stares at her, unblinking, and she stares at him, and —

"He was in the cell marked for James Potter," Bertie says, frowning as he glances between them.

She ignores him. James hasn't taken his eyes off her, and he hasn't moved a muscle.

His knuckles are white as he grips the chair.

She surges forward, murmuring, but his name sticks in her throat. "James," she repeats, louder, kneeling, touching his hands. They're battered, she realizes, blotted with black and purple and yellow, bruises on bruises, brown blood staining the creases in his dried, flaky skin. "Oh, James."

"Prove it," he hisses, his lips chapped, cut. "They're saying the war is over, but if this is another fucking _trick_ —" His jaw clenches.

She grasps his hands, pulling them up, kissing them, holding them to her face. "It's not a trick, darling," she breathes. "The war is over, it's _over_, and we're going home." He doesn't move, doesn't believe her. "James!" she whispers, flicking his cheek, trying to put life back into him. "This isn't a trick," she breathes, reaching out to brush his hair from his face. "But I'm very sore with you. Sirius says everything was your idea. Turning yourself in. Stupid, stupid boy. My James."

His face contorts, his fingers flexing against her cheek.

"It's you," he whispers. "The war's over, and —"

She nods, smiling. "Voldemort is dead. They're rounding up the Death Eaters, and —"

"And it's really you," he repeats. His thumb runs along the scar on her cheek, catching under her chin to touch her pulse point. Her heart races, and she knows he can feel it. "Lily, Lily, Lily," he breathes.

She kisses him.

His hands dig into her neck, into her arms, into her hips, and she kisses him endlessly, laughing a little, crying, or he is crying, or they're crying together. He mutters something about Harry, and she nods furiously. "I've left him with Alice," she says, or she tries to say, kissing and kissing him.

* * *

She cuts his hair that night, sloppily chopping at the long, dirty locks.

Harry sits on his lap, chattering happily, and Lily can't taper her smile as she watches them.

There are a thousand things she needs to tell James, starting with the truth about Voldemort's death. She needs to tell him about the Menial District, about Hermione, and she knows there is plenty for him to explain. They were apart for years, and there is too much to say. They need to talk about about what happens next, about finding Remus, about getting Sirius out.

But Alice makes enough dinner to feed them for a week, and they stay at the table late into the night. When dinner is finished at last, Harry doesn't want to go to sleep, and Lily can't bear to be cross with him over it. Hermione asks James whether he wants her to read him a bedtime story, crawling into his lap the moment he says that he would like that very much. She was shy around him at first, but it's impossible to stay shy around James.

"I can't remember the last time someone read me a bedtime story," he says, grinning at her.

After the story is finished, the children are put to bed, and Lily starts a bath for James.

She ends up taking off her clothes, too, climbing in beside him. His fingers linger on her ribs, and she litters kisses across the scar that slashes over his shoulder down to his belly. He can't stop running his hands through her hair, and his lips ghost over the brand on her palm, something like a promise shining in his eyes when he catches her gaze. She is careful as she washes the red, raw skin where the chains in Azkaban chaffed his ankles, and she tries to count every mark on him, to know every terrible thing they've done to her husband. They stay in the bath until the water turns cold.

The children have fallen asleep in the bed, and Alice is asleep on the sofa.

But they're quiet, moving together on the floor, a damp towel underneath Lily as James pushes into her. She doesn't mean to cry, but she can't help her tears, staring up at him as he moves inside her. His arms rest on the floor, framing her head, and he doesn't kiss her until she arches up into him; at that moment, he plunges his tongue into her mouth, his hands finding her hips, tilting her up, and she cries out, but he swallows the sound, taking her breath into his lungs, holding her against him as he spills into her. Afterward, she turns, and they stay together on the floor, intertwined.

"Do you remember our wedding?" he asks.

Her nose brushes his. "Vaguely," she says. "I wasn't exactly sober."

He smiles. "Lily Potter," he murmurs, as though tasting the name on his tongue.

She understands. It's everything for which they've fought. It's a world where people aren't rounded up, tagged, and locked away because someone says they're inferior. It's a world where good men don't go to Azkaban, where children don't starve, where Harry Potter isn't an abomination.

"Lily Potter," she repeats, and she kisses her husband.

* * *

They bury Severus on a Tuesday.

Dumbledore arranges everything. Alice comes, bringing Neville, and a couple members from the resistance that Severus helped come, too. That's it. Harry holds hands with Hermione, standing beside James.

Lily doesn't know what to say, and they lower Severus into the ground with few words.

Lily told James what happened, and he agreed to keep the secret. The world doesn't need to know the power that Harry possesses, the part that he played. But Lily tells Harry that Severus saved his life, because he must've done something, must've cast some spell to protect him, and Lily loves him for that. Harry kneels at the grave and whispers the words. "Thank you, Mr. Snape."

* * *

She feels like she could sleep for days, yet she lies awake in bed, staring at the ceiling.

* * *

It takes a little digging, but they learn that her name is Hermione Granger, and her parents are dead.

Lily explains everything to Hermione as gently as she can. Hermione nods. She is quiet, and Lily doesn't know what to do. "But you're lucky," James says, swinging Hermione up to set her on the kitchen counter, "because we're your parents, too, and you're stuck with us." He holds out his pinky, and they swear on it. The Ministry is chaotic, but James finds the person to ask, who gives him the papers to sign, and her name is Hermione Potter.

* * *

"It's over," Sirius says. "I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I should take up a hobby. Fishing. Tenpin. Competitive drinking."

Lily leans her head on his shoulder. "How do you feel about Australia?"

* * *

Slowly, in quiet, soft moments, they talk.

As they wash the dishes, she tells him about the train ride to the district. They walk home from Tesco, and he tells her how, after Sirius dragged him from the flat, he broke his hand when he punched his friend. She spits out her toothpaste, and she tells him about the sisters in her tenement. In bed, he whispers about the ways Bellatrix Lestrange tortured him in Azkaban.

She talks about Severus.

"Dumbledore told me that he was caught trying to find out where you were being kept in Azkaban," she says, "and that's why Voldemort looked inside his mind, and he saw everything."

James tangles his fingers in her curls. "I don't know whether I would've been able to do that. Risk everything to save the man I hated, the man that you loved, knowing you loved him more than me." The words stick a little in his throat.

"No," she says, "you would've done it, because you love me." She brushes her fingers over his cheek. "He loved me, too. Despite everything that happened, he loved me. I don't know why."

James smiles, brushing his thumb over her lip. "I have a few ideas. There's nobody like you."

Slowly, in quiet, soft moments, they move on.

* * *

They talk about restoring the cottage, but Lily isn't ready for that yet.

They stay in the flat, and she gives James his wand. She knows she needs to get her own eventually, but she isn't up for trying to go into town yet. "I don't mind a reprieve from magic for a while," she explains. She thinks she needs a reprieve from England, in fact, from the chaos, from the trials for Death Eaters. Sirius is free, and they find Remus in an underground hospital overflowing with dwarves, werewolves, goblins.

Peter saved him.

"The moment they caught us," Remus says, "I thought I was dead. I thought for sure —" He looks at Sirius. "They hauled you off to try to rehabilitate you," he says, "but I knew they wouldn't bother to keep a werewolf. Peter found me, though. He found me, and he left the door unlocked, and I got out."

He doesn't know what happened to Peter. Sirius mutters that the gutter must've welcomed another rat to the ranks.

Lily kisses Remus on the cheek, and she refuses to think about Peter.

The provisional government empties the Menial District before they burn the entire place to the ground. The news bothers Lily. It's not as though they ought to preserve the place, but somehow burning everything seems like making for a fresh start, a start where the world forgets what happened, forgets how many people suffered in the district, how many people died. They can't forget.

It's through Dumbledore that she learns which schoolmates survived.

Sirius cries when he finds out that Andromeda Tonks is dead. But her daughter survived the camp, and Sirius goes to visit the girl, a teenager left to put her broken life back together with her father. That's what's left. Broken lives, and they've got to find ways to plaster themselves back together. Sirius cries again that night in the bath, unable to stop the floodgates now that he's let them open after years.

Hermione leaves biscuits for him outside the toilet door.

* * *

Lily visits Privet Drive.

The house hasn't been touched, and Lily sees Petunia through the window. She can't believe it.

She considers leaving, but she makes herself knock. Petunia gapes when she opens the door to find Lily on her doorstop. "I don't mean to bother you," Lily says, "but I wanted to tell you that the war is over."

"I — I thought you were dead," Petunia says. She clears her throat. "I haven't heard from you for quite some time." She looks almost accusingly at Lily as she says it. Some things haven't changed.

"A lot happened," Lily replies. "I'm glad you're okay, Tuney." She smiles, turning to leave.

But Petunia reaches out. Her hand hovers in the air, dropping to her side before she touches Lily.

"Would you — would you like to come in?" she asks, looking a little pained at her own words.

Lily nods, stepping forward. She means to touch Petunia on the arm, a friendly gesture, but she finds herself hugging her. Petunia is unresponsive in her arms, but at the same moment Lily means to step away, Petunia relaxes, and her arms come around Lily. Her sister hugs her, and Lily gasps, tears rising up in her throat.

Petunia pats her on the shoulder. "There, there," she says, stiffening.

Lily sobs, and she can't stop, and she doesn't know why, suddenly, she isn't able to hold herself together. She knows Petunia must be silently cursing at what the neighbors are thinking, but Lily clings to her, refusing to care, because she loves her sister, and she is alive, and "we survived," Lily breathes, sobbing.

"Yes, obviously," Petunia says. "But you'll soil my jumper, and the neighbors can _see_, Lily."

* * *

She sprinkles a little more salt onto her pork chops, only to realize that Sirius is staring at her.

"What?"

* * *

Dumbledore comes to the flat for tea.

Lily tells him that James is out to buy plane tickets for Australia. "We thought we would try living as Muggles for a little while," Lily says, and Dumbledore agrees that the idea sounds very pleasant.

But he brings up the prophecy. "I suppose the prophecy remains unfulfilled."

He watches her carefully as she nods. "To be honest," she says, "I've never really believed in them."

On his way out, he mentions that a woman wants to write a book about the Menial District. "She wants to tell the story before anyone can try to revise history," he explains, "a noble quest."

* * *

Lily blinks, and a hundred memories fade into the squalid flat.

Across the room, Sirius puffs on his cigarette, his eyes meeting hers with a knowing look.

* * *

Caroline isn't sure what to do. "Mrs. Potter," she murmurs. "Is something the matter?"

Mrs. Potter shakes her head, rising to her feet. "My experience wasn't pleasant," she says. "But I wrote something for my children, and you can borrow it." She disappears into the bedroom. When she emerges, she clutches a thin, tattered notebook in one hand while her other rests on her belly.

Caroline stares. She hadn't realized at first, but, under the lumpy jumper, Mrs. Potter is pregnant.

"This is everything," Mrs. Potter says, offering Caroline the notebook. "Or what I'm willing to share," she adds. "As soon as my husband returns from the bank with the kids, we're leaving for a little while, but you can return that to Albus Dumbledore when you're finished. He'll look after it."

Caroline nods. "Thank you. If you don't mind my asking, where are you going?"

"We're taking a holiday," Mrs. Potter says, and she smiles, and something from the woman in the photographs in the paper, something from the fierce fighter that Mrs. Potter must've been once upon a time, peeks through in that smile. "I was never able to go on my honeymoon, you know."

A cockroach scuttles across the floor, making Caroline jump.

Mrs. Potter sighs.

"I really do hate those bugs," she says. "But I suppose there are worse things in the world."

**fin.**

* * *

_When the hour is nigh,_

_And hopelessness is sinking in,_

_And the wolves all cry,_

_To fill the night with hollering._

_When your eyes are red,_

_And emptiness is all you know,_

_With the darkness fed,_

_I will be your scarecrow._


End file.
